


in famine, in feast

by bysine



Category: GOT7, JJ Project, 킹덤 | Kingdom (TV 2019)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Royalty, Slow Burn, Zombies, joseon era, zombie sageuk au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-30 18:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 38,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20451341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bysine/pseuds/bysine
Summary: At fifteen, Jinyoung had experienced more than enough to recognise a slight for what it was. The boy Lord Ahn Hyeon had sent from Sangju — and at barely a year older than Jinyoung himself, this Jaebeomwasa boy — was hardly fit for the palace, let alone service to the Crown Prince. Knowledge of protocol was one matter, and the Emperor's own guards had taken on Jaebeom's training in this regard. But there was no training away the way he stood and the way he stared: like he was still on the lookout on some hill in some forest, ready to pounce or bolt.-------Fusion with the Netflix seriesKingdom (2019). Rated ‘A’ for Austenian and ‘O’ for old timey. And ‘Z’ for zombies, of course. Forforochel, whose alternative summary for this is: So Joseon / Much Austen / Wow





	in famine, in feast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forochel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/gifts).

> In case it wasn’t obvious, MASSIVE SPOILERS for the whole of Season 1 of _Kingdom_. I also cannot claim credit for the dialogue that was lifted from the show, or the entire plot of Season 1, which is amazing. This house has good bones! I merely frolic on its rafters.
> 
> And if you are wondering why I am suddenly writing Got7 fanfiction, let me direct you to the esteemed [forochel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/). This fic is for them :')

**Then**

Minister Cho had laughed when he had heard about the new guard Lord Ahn Hyeon had sent Jinyoung.

“He has sent a child to guard a child,” Minister Cho had said, while the other ministers had nodded along in amusement.

At fifteen, Jinyoung had experienced more than enough to recognise a slight for what it was. The boy Lord Ahn Hyeon had sent from Sangju – and at barely a year older than Jinyoung himself, this Jaebeom _was_ a boy – was hardly fit for the palace, let alone service to the Crown Prince. Knowledge of protocol was one matter, and the Emperor's own guards had taken on Jaebeom's training in this regard. But there was no training away the way he stood and the way he stared: like he was still on the lookout on some hill in some forest, ready to pounce or bolt.

There was nothing to be done about it, Jinyoung decided. Lord Ahn Hyeon had been his only ally and now he had gone to fight the war, and Jinyoung's own father was preparing to take a new Queen Consort.

_You must live_, Lord Ahn Hyeon had once told Jinyoung, _so you can guard the throne and fight injustice_. 

Perhaps Lord Ahn Hyeon thought differently, now that he had been sent to lead an army with only the barest chance of victory.

Then Jinyoung had come across Jaebeom training, far out in the palace grounds where the other guards would not see him. 

Jinyoung had only read of men whose swords moved so fast that they could balance a cup of water on the blade and not spill one drop. The fact that Jaebeom had even been attempting this was impressive enough. 

The fact that the cup remained treacherously full was even more astounding. 

And Jinyoung understood, then, what Lord Ahn Hyeon must have intended. In sending this boy away from the battlefront to protect Jinyoung, Lord Ahn Hyeon had improved both their odds of survival. 

Jaebeom looked up then, and must have caught sight of the unadulterated awe on Jinyoung’s face, because he flushed furiously and turned away from Jinyoung, toppling the cup onto the ground. 

“You are very skilled,” Jinyoung told Jaebeom, walking over to pick up the cup as Jaebeom sheathed his sword in a hurry. The expression on Jaebeom’s face was somehow proud and furious and embarrassed all at the same time. “I am not displeased that you have chosen not to train with my father’s guards.”

Clearly Jaebeom remembered some of his lessons on how not to get himself killed by offending the Crown Prince, from the way he had stowed his blade and also how he was now studiously avoiding eye contact. He had not, however, remembered how to greet a prince, nor the correct way to speak to one. 

“I’m better with a musket,” Jaebeom said instead, and looked confused when Jinyoung started to laugh.

  
**Now**

_Live_, Lord Ahn Hyeon had told Jinyoung, but he had not said how.

_Like this?_ Jinyoung wonders, as he and Jaebeom ride south to Dongnae. Dozens of scholars are being interrogated on his account, for the posters that have gone up all across the capital claiming that the Emperor is dead. His father has lain ill for ten days now, with none allowed to see him but the Queen Consort and her father, Prime Minister Cho. A monster stalks his father’s quarters. 

Treason, they will say of the Crown Prince, when they discover he is no longer in the palace. Prime Minister Cho will be satisfied to conclude that Jinyoung is responsible for the posters. 

They will not be wrong. 

“It’s only treason if your father isn’t dead,” says Jaebeom when they stop to make camp. 

“You presume to know my thoughts now?” Jinyoung snaps, because he is cold and sore and irritable from the day’s travel, and wants Jaebeom to know it.

“Yes,” Jaebeom replies, matter-of-fact. “Seven years with Your Royal Highness will do the trick.” 

Jinyoung narrows his eyes at Jaebeom, who continues to busy himself with the campfire. “‘_Your Royal Highness_’...” he repeats slowly. “Surely you cannot _still_ be annoyed?” 

Jaebeom says nothing, just fans sparks into flame with practiced ease. 

“Good heavens,” says Jinyoung accusingly. “You _are_.”

Jaebeom fixes Jinyoung with a baleful look. “I was promised meat dumplings, for my troubles.”

“Clearly there were exigencies!” Jinyoung cries. 

“I broke into the Emperor’s records room and stole the royal physician’s logbook,” counters Jaebeom, reaching into his pack for their store of _yukpo_, “it was _very_ dangerous work.” 

“You,” says Jinyoung, “will be the death of me.” 

Jaebeom hands Jinyoung a strip of the dried beef. “Quite the contrary,” he replies, in that plain and measured tone he seems to have developed just to infuriate Jinyoung. Perhaps it infuriates Jinyoung because Jaebeom only uses that tone when he speaks the truth. 

Jinyoung takes the _yukpo_, and grips Jaebeom’s hand as he does it. “I would like very much if we both tried not to die,” he tells Jaebeom, in place of all the other things he would like to tell him.

“I would like that as well,” says Jaebeom quietly, and with startling sincerity. Then, with a little glint in his eye, he adds: “Your Royal Highness.”

Jinyoung groans, and laughs, and pretends he does not notice how Jaebeom has, for just a moment, managed to divert him from his worries.

  
**Then**

“Teach me to fight,” said Jinyoung to Jaebeom, the night Minister Cho’s daughter ascended to Queen Consort. The days leading up to the ceremony had been filled with having to look impassive in the face of dozens of insults phrased in the politest of terms, and navigating veiled and significant comments from the Chief Scholar about what might happen if the new Queen Consort bears the Emperor a son.

Now that Jinyoung’s servants had lifted the ceremonial silks from his body, he felt fragile and hollow like a feather, like if he did not plant himself he would be caught up and pulled into the wind. 

“You know how to fight,” Jaebeom replied, his words blunt but not careless. They only spoke plainly to each other in private because Jinyoung had insisted on it. 

Jinyoung frowned. “I do not know how to fight like you do.” He had learned swordsmanship from the best warriors the palace had to offer, but not Jaebeom’s brutal grace. 

“No,” agreed Jaebeom. “You don’t.”

They went, that night, to the clearing on the far side of the palace grounds where Jinyoung had first discovered Jaebeom practising. Except now instead of a metal blade, Jaebeom insisted they both use wooden training ones. 

“I hardly think these are necessary–” Jinyoung protested, only to have Jaebeom dart forward and rap him neatly on the knuckles. 

Jinyoung yelped, and dropped his wooden sword. “You dare strike me?” he cried, with sincere outrage.

Just two months ago, Jaebeom would have drawn back, expression taut as he braced himself for the worst. Now he just picked up Jinyoung’s practice sword and handed it back. It was hard to tell by torchlight, but Jinyoung could swear there was something almost like amusement on Jaebeom’s face.

“Your Royal Highness,” said Jaebeom. “I seem to recall you wanting a fight.” 

“I asked to _learn_ to fight,” Jinyoung retorted.

Jaebeom tapped his training sword against Jinyoung’s with languid ease, nudging it higher. “How do you think I learned?” 

So they sparred. Jaebeom was everywhere, but nowhere Jinyoung’s sword touched. Each stroke that Jinyoung attempted swung through air or hit dirt, and whenever Jaebeom did attack, it was in a flurry that Jinyoung could barely block. With each futile swing his arms grew more and more leaden, his fingers trembling from the juddering of his training sword under Jaebeom’s blows. 

When he dropped his sword again it was from pure exhaustion. He stumbled, only for Jaebeom to catch him by the shoulders. 

He did not know why, but there were tears pricking his eyes, like whatever he had been holding within himself these past weeks had been knocked out of him the way one of Jaebeom's earlier blows had knocked the wind from him. He took a breath and was surprised to find himself exhaling with a sob.

“I'm sorry,” said Jaebeom. His grip softened on Jinyoung’s shoulders but he did not let go. “That was unkind of me.”

And that was what made Jinyoung unravel, in the end – that Jaebeom had apologised for something that was so small compared to all that Jinyoung had been trying to stand up under, all his life. His entire existence in the palace felt like trying to cut through air; the sum of his energies barely sufficient to fend off each successive blow from the Haewon Cho clan. 

He was weeping now, silently, hating himself as he did so. All Jaebeom did was continue to hold Jinyoung, his gaze averted to one side so as not to cause Jinyoung any further embarrassment. Jinyoung wept for his dead mother – only a concubine, they said – and for his powerless father, Emperor and nothing. He wept for Lord Ahn Hyeon with his flagging troops in the south, and for himself as a boy, being told to stand up and stop crying because he was the Crown Prince, because he must _live_. He wept from the dread he woke up to each day and the dread that pulled him into fitful sleep each night, for the long held breath that was the sum and breadth of his life thus far. 

Later, after the wave of grief and helplessness had subsided, after Jinyoung had pulled himself from Jaebeom and carefully straightened the old robes he’d changed into for sparring, Jaebeom reached one hand towards Jinyoung as if to touch him. Then Jaebeom paused, seeming to think better of it.

_Good_, Jinyoung thought, turning away from Jaebeom. The other servants in the palace often whispered about how Jaebeom had apparently hunted tigers with the fearless _chakho_. Perhaps it was even true. But what did it matter, Jinyoung supposed, now that he was reduced to guarding a craven prince?

“I do not know,” said Jaebeom quietly, “how to fight like you do.” 

Jinyoung stiffened. Then he forced himself to walk away as if he had not heard what Jaebeom had said. If his heart felt lighter at those words, he was not about to admit it.

  
**Now**

As the officers from the magistrate's office begin to pull the first body out from beneath the deck of Jiyulheon's main building, Jaebeom shifts to stand fractionally in front of Jinyoung.

This does not stop Jinyoung from seeing the way two more corpses are clinging to the first, or indeed the entire mass of bodies, rigidly entangled, that the officers eventually drag out into the courtyard. Jinyoung turns away, unable to imagine what could have caused this. Or, for that matter, why the walls of the clinic compound are streaked with blood, up to the jagged ends of the bamboo poles lining the tops of its walls in ghastly, haphazard rows. The stench is unspeakable, far worse than what he had hid from when he had tried to break into the Emperor's quarters to see if his father was truly alive. 

They had arrived at this clinic atop Geumjeong Mountain in Dongnae after two days’ hard travel from the capital, only to find it boarded up. Jaebeom had been the one to climb up Jiyulheon’s walls, picking his way past the bamboo and leaping down into the courtyard in order to unlock its doors from the inside. And then they had seen the state of it. 

Jaebeom’s eyes dart towards the door of the compound, where their horses are currently tied. He inclines his head in a silent question. Jinyoung could rest outside.

Jinyoung shakes his head and steps past Jaebeom to get a closer look at the bodies as the magistrate’s men prise them apart. 

“My brother is ill,” he hears Jaebeom telling the magistrate’s deputy. “I wanted him to be examined by Physician Lee, but when we arrived we found this.” 

“Does your brother have his identification tag?” the deputy asks. 

“Ah, he was rushing out and forgot it,” Jaebeom replies smoothly. “He looks fine but he’s not well,” he adds, ignoring the way Jinyoung glares at Jaebeom from beneath the brim of his _gat_.

Physician Lee’s body is not among the forty-eight retrieved from under the decks of Jiyulheon’s buildings. 

“What will you do?” Jaebeom asks, as they start their journey down Geumjeong Mountain to Dongnae city, leading their horses along the side of the path in order to allow the magistrate’s men to pass with the bodies. 

There is no real choice but to try to track down Physician Lee, who alone holds the answer to his father’s mysterious illness.

“I will not sit around, that is for sure,” Jinyoung replies, resolutely, only to be made to spend several hours sitting in a Dongnae teahouse waiting for Jaebeom after Jinyoung tries to demand that the owner of a mirror shop answer his question immediately.

In his seven years in the palace, Jaebeom has not so much shed his old roughness as he has learned to put on the manners of others. Where he once could only be found skulking a wary distance from the other guards, he now is able to mirror their jocular tones. He knows when to be soft and charming towards certain maids and which ones will trade favours and information. Jinyoung has seen him grow into this skill in much the same way Jaebeom practices with his sword; days and days until he gets it right. 

And so it is not at all surprising when Jaebeom returns with a lead: the man who supplies medicinal herbs to Jiyulheon has seen another Jiyulheon physician just recently, a woman named Hyoyeon who has been asking about something called a resurrection plant. 

“And he says she is up in a place called Frozen Valley?” says Jinyoung. 

“You can come if you promise you will not command her to answer you,” says Jaebeom with a wry look. 

“I do not _command_,” Jinyoung grumbles, trailing after him. 

The sun has already begun to dip lower in the sky as they begin their trek to Frozen Valley. 

“I could go on ahead,” Jaebeom says, after they have struggled up a steep hill. 

“I would be more afraid to be left alone,” replies Jinyoung, and forges on without taking the arm that Jaebeom offers him. 

There is no doubt that they are proceeding in the right direction: the way their breath begins to mist in the chill air is enough to tell. As the forest thins into an ice-covered valley, Jaebeom stills. 

“Do you hear that?” 

Jinyoung pauses. He hears, faintly, what sounds like something digging or scrabbling against dirt and stone. “Is that–”

Jaebeom points in the direction the sound is coming from, and quietly draws his sword. They inch towards the small hollow in the rocks. 

A slight figure is crouched within it, scraping a trowel frantically in the icy dirt.

“We mean no harm,” says Jaebeom, causing the woman to jump. 

She scrambles round, wide-eyed, thrusting her trowel out towards them as if to fend them away. The corners of her apron are streaked with blood and dirt. 

“Lower your blade,” Jinyoung hisses at Jaebeom. 

Jaebeom sheaths it instead, because he is contrary. “Are you Hyoyeon, a physician of Jiyulheon?” 

The woman glances warily at Jaebeom’s hand, still resting on the hilt of his sword. “What business have you with me?”

“We are looking for Physician Lee,” says Jinyoung. “But were unable to find him at Jiyulheon–”

“You’ve been to Jiyulheon?” Hyoyeon asks sharply. 

“We have just come from it–” Jinyoung begins.

“You went inside?” 

“Yes,” says Jinyoung, “and the magistrate’s men have taken the bodies–”

“No,” Hyoyeon says, with growing panic in her voice. “No, they shouldn’t have, those people are not dead. It must be stopped–”

“Calm yourself,” Jaebeom says. “Lady, speak plainly.”

“The bodies are patients of Jiyulheon,” she tells them. “They have a disease that causes them to sleep as if they are dead during the day, and rise each night as monsters desirous of human flesh. We have contained them in Jiyulheon these past three days, but if they are removed elsewhere, the disease...” Her hands tremble; she tries to steady them by smoothing her fingers against her stained apron. 

Jaebeom glances over at Jinyoung. “This woman is insane,” he says. “How can the dead awaken?”

“How is it transmitted?” Jinyoung asks, ignoring Jaebeom’s startled look. Even as Jinyoung asks this question his mind goes to the wounds on the bodies they had seen earlier, savaged with bite marks that looked, even to his untrained eye, very much like they were made by human teeth. “The people they attack – do they become monsters as well?” 

Hyoyeon nods. “Physician Lee said – he said he could reverse it, he said he had logged all the effects of the resurrection flower. I have been trying to find the flower in order to study its properties.” She pauses, looking fearfully at the sky, which is growing darker by the minute. “We must hurry and warn the magistrate, for there is no time.”

“You say there are records,” Jinyoung says.

“Yes, Physician Lee’s journals are kept in the medicine shed at Jiyulheon,” Hyoyeon replies.

“I will retrieve it,” says Jinyoung, in a tone that will brook no argument. “Jaebeom will take you to the magistrate.”

He knows without having to look that Jaebeom is unhappy about this, but Jaebeom says nothing as they hurry down the hill to where they have left their horses. 

When they reach their horses Jaebeom takes the reins of Jinyoung's mare before Jinyoung can, and helps Jinyoung up onto the horse. Jinyoung, who has spent the past two days mounting and dismounting unassisted, lets him. Neither of them tells the other to be safe.

  
**Then**

The drought would not abate.

Two years into the Queen Consort’s marriage and she had yet to bear the Emperor a son. Instead, even the rain had ceased to fall. 

No one would have dared to imply a link between the two events, of course, especially not within earshot of Prime Minister Cho. Perhaps the Crown Prince’s energies were not compatible with the Queen Consort’s, suggested the royal geomancers instead; perhaps they would benefit from an adjustment to the location of the Crown Prince’s quarters.

“Perhaps the royal geomancers would benefit from being dangled by their ankles from a roof,” suggested Jaebeom, when they were in private. 

“As confident as I am in your abilities,” Jinyoung said, not looking up from the report before him, “I do not know if you have enough hands to dangle them all.” 

The document from the provinces had confirmed his worst fears. Between the war and the drought, there would be a famine on their hands by wintertime. Already the peasants were losing their crops, and yet taxes were being raised. Twice, Jinyoung had petitioned the Emperor in private to reconsider.

“We will wait for the rains,” Jinyoung’s father had told Jinyoung, on his second visit. “I am advised that the stores will be sufficient.”

“Sufficient for whom?” Jinyoung had demanded, and when his father had remained silent, Jinyoung had continued, “Surely not the people?”

“We will wait for the rains,” his father had said, maddeningly calm, like the matter was concluded as far as he was concerned.

“If you do nothing, father–” and Jinyoung had not been able to help the clatter of his teacup as he set it down with shaking hands – “the Haewon Cho clan will suck the marrow from this country’s bones.” 

His father had frowned, then, in a rare show of displeasure. Even then, he had seemed to keep his distance, to hold himself above the thrust of Jinyoung’s anger. “Do we not also partake?” he had asked instead, as if this were merely a lesson in philosophy, and Jinyoung a child. 

“I shall not,” Jinyoung had replied. “I will have my own personal food supplies redistributed to the people.”

“Do as you wish,” his father had said. “Do not presume to trouble me with this in private again.” 

Then he had turned his face away. That, above all, had hurt Jinyoung the most. 

“You are thinking of agreeing, then?” said Jaebeom, guessing Jinyoung’s thoughts from his troubled silence. “You would let them turn you from your home to suit their whims.” 

“You would call this my home?” Jinyoung asked, as he made a note of one particular line in the report.

“It is the roof under which you sleep,” replied Jaebeom.

Jinyoung looked up at Jaebeom. “That is a poor definition indeed.”

“Indeed,” Jaebeom snapped, “for what would I know of a home?” 

And Jaebeom was angry, Jinyoung could see, possibly even bewildered that Jinyoung would not rage along with him despite having every right to do so. He had learned by now that Jaebeom’s anger was a clean, scorching thing; quick to burn but also swiftly extinguished. Jinyoung, who had little option but to bury his fury, to let it sink cold in his bones, admired even this about Jaebeom. 

“Would you have me refuse?” Jinyoung asked, as gently as he could allow himself. “Be accused of perpetuating disharmony and obstructing the rain?” 

“You are the Crown Prince!” Jaebeom burst out. “They have not the right–”

“And if the geomancers are correct and my moving brings this drought to an end,” Jinyoung continued, “would I not have helped the people?” 

Jaebeom gave a bitter laugh. “If the geomancers are correct, the Queen Consort will fall pregnant with a son. Where would that leave you?” 

When Jinyoung remained silent, Jaebeom shook his head and turned to look out of the window. Framed now against the night sky, his broad shoulders seemed diminished, his stature somehow small.

“There is an order to things,” Jinyoung replied. “I should be seen to follow it.” 

“It is an insult,” said Jaebeom, but with less heat now that it was clear Jinyoung had made his decision.

“Yes,” Jinyoung agreed. “It is. And I shall not forget it.”

  
**Now**

Three horses are tethered to a fence in the inner courtyard at Jiyulheon. Apart from their skittish snorts, the place is unnervingly silent. Jinyoung glances long enough at their horse tack to confirm that these must be from the Royal Investigation Bureau.

He enters the medicine shed with caution, ready to draw his sword at any moment. Sure enough, at the far end of the shed stands the head of the Bureau, Prime Minister Cho’s son Beom-il.

“Is this what you came for?” Beom-il says, tossing Physician Lee’s journal back onto its shelf. “All the way here to Dongnae?” He pulls a letter from his clothes and unfolds it. “This is His Majesty’s command: upon interrogating the eighty-nine scholars who distributed propaganda, it was uncovered that the mastermind behind it all was the Crown Prince. I am to bring you in to get the full account of the conspiracy.” 

Beom-il pauses, crumpling the sheet of paper in his hand. “If you come quietly, I will not bind your hands. You are the Crown Prince, after all.” 

Two other guards enter the shed, shutting the doors behind them. 

Jinyoung scoffs. “The King’s command?” he repeats. “Does this nation truly have a king?”

“What do you mean?” asks Beom-il. “The King is merely recovering from smallpox.” 

“Tell me why, then, Physician Lee needed to use the resurrection flower,” Jinyoung replies. “Did my father pass away?” 

He does not miss the surprise that crosses Beom-il’s face for a beat. 

“Of course he did not, Your Royal Highness,” Beom-il replies, with a smile that says otherwise. “His Majesty is very much alive. I cannot say the same, however, for his mental capacity. But he will be fine until the Queen gives birth.” 

Jinyoung has always been painfully familiar with Prime Minister Cho’s ambition, but he now finds himself stunned, once again, by its sheer immensity. 

“Do you covet power that badly,” he says, and finds that even his voice is trembling, “to have committed such an abomination?”

Beom-il smiles. “And what have you done, Your Royal Highness? You were only lucky to have been born as the son of the King. You have done nothing, and yet you look at my father and me as if you are above us, as if we are disgusting insects.” 

“You are correct,” Jinyoung replies, a cold rage gripping him now. “I am above you. And you are insects. You and your family are a plague upon this country.” 

Beom-il’s expression now is poisonous as he crumples the King’s orders in his hands. “The night I caught you sneaking through His Majesty’s quarters, you dared me to strike you.” He draws his sword. “I shall grant your wish today.” 

Jinyoung has barely drawn his own sword when Beom-il attacks. He avoids Beom-il’s blade only by a hair’s breadth, crashing into a bookshelf as he does so, and steadies himself just in time to block another of Beom-il’s blows. Beom-il is nowhere as fast as Jaebeom but he makes up for it with dogged relentlessness, driving Jinyoung back towards the wall. 

_Do not try to fight like a swordsman_, Jaebeom always tells him. _Fight like a desperate fool who has everything to lose_. 

_I am hardly a fool_, Jinyoung will invariably reply. 

Now he just slashes one of the sacks hanging from the ceiling, causing a shower of powdered herbs to fly directly into Beom-il’s eyes. When Beom-il thrusts blindly towards him, Jinyoung sidesteps him neatly and kicks at Beom-il’s sword hand, before swinging at his face. 

A gash of blood appears on Beom-il’s cheek. He pauses to toss his severed hat to the ground. 

The next onslaught is ten times more brutal. Jinyoung finds himself crashing heavily into shelves, scrambling as he avoids Beom-il’s swings. He trips backwards into a pillar with a breathtaking thud and ducks just in time for Beom-il to miss his neck. Beom-il lurches for a moment, off-balance, and Jinyoung takes that chance to swing at him. 

Beom-il jerks away, and Jinyoung’s blade embeds itself into another pillar instead. As he tries to free it, Beom-il brings his own sword down on Jinyoung’s, and severs the blade. 

It is over in seconds. Beom-il’s sword is at Jinyoung’s throat. 

“You should not have been born the Crown Prince,” Beom-il tells him. 

Jinyoung breathes, and braces for the worst. 

And then, from the far end of the shed comes a thud. And then another.

They both glance over. The source of the sound seems to be from inside an overturned cabinet. Another thud, and Jinyoung sees now the way the cabinet’s backboard shudders, as if someone – or something – is trying to get out. 

Beom-il beckons the guards over. Hesitantly the two guards approach the cabinet, and heave it onto its side. The cabinet is locked. The line where its two doors meet is smudged with dark blood. 

“Open it,” says Beom-il.

One of the guards breaks the lock with his sheathed sword. He crouches down to lift open one door. 

With terrifying speed, a figure in white bursts out, pinning the guard to the ground and sinking its teeth into his flesh. The figure is in the shape of a man, but the sounds it makes are that of a beast. The entire shed is filled with the now-familiar stench of death.

While Jinyoung reels backwards, Beom-il dashes towards the creature to plunge his sword into its back. For a moment the creature stills. Then it stands, slowly, snarling fitfully as the guard’s blood drips from its mouth – it is a man, Jinyoung sees now, possibly of considerable age from the white of his hair, with skin black and mottled like a corpse. It rushes towards Beom-il, who wrestles it at arm’s length while the other guard tries, vainly, to stab it in the back. 

The creature jerks round towards the guard, who stumbles backwards into the cabinet, doors swinging shut on top of him. While the creature leaps on top of the cabinet and scrabbles at the wood, the first guard begins to make an unearthly, rasping sound. 

Beom-il turns in time to see the first guard charging him, and slices his sword through the guard’s neck in the last second. The guard drops to the ground and ceases to move. Beom-il stares at the guard’s prone body for an astonished second, his chest heaving wildly. In that same moment, the first creature abandons the cabinet and leaps onto Beom-il, knocking him to the ground. 

Amidst Beom-il’s cries, Jinyoung forces himself to stand. He casts around until he spots a large and heavy-looking brick by the base of one of the shelves. Lifting it with shaking hands, he stumbles over to where the creature is still mauling Beom-il, and drops the brick directly on its head. 

The creature falls still. Beom-il shoves it off himself and scrambles to his feet, one hand pressed to his neck where the creature has bitten him. He turns towards Jinyoung. For a moment a look passes between them, one of shared horror deeper than whatever animosity they had before this. And then Beom-il stumbles, and drops to his knees. Jinyoung watches him writhe, and strain, and finally fall dead to the ground. 

The second guard, who has thus far been hiding in the cabinet, climbs out of it. Jinyoung stoops to pick up Beom-il’s sword, ready to defend himself should this guard try to apprehend him. Before the guard can say a word, however, they are interrupted by the sight of Beom-il rising to his feet again, his mouth open in a ghastly snarl. 

The guard runs for his life. Jinyoung, too, makes a break for the door, with Beom-il closing in on him. But Beom-il is too fast; Jinyoung will not outrun him. 

In the last second, Jinyoung turns and swings with all his might, and slices off Beom-il’s head with his own sword. 

Jinyoung pauses, panting raggedly, the sword now limp in his hands. As he pushes through the doors he hears the distant sounds of something awful in the air. The woman Hyoyeon was right, he thinks. 

Fear grips him anew. He must get to Jaebeom. 

He does not remember how he manages to stumble down the mountain, but by the time he reaches the river at its foot, the city of Dongnae is burning.

  
**Then**

Four years from the day Lord Ahn Hyeon had left for the south, messengers arrived in the capital: Lord Ahn Hyeon had managed to defeat a Japanese army of thirty thousand, with only five hundred men.

Preparations for a feast in his honour were immediately under way. As the news of his victory spread, celebrations began to erupt across the capital. 

But Lord Ahn Hyeon would not be returning to Hanyang. His mother had died, and he was to mourn her three years in Sangju. 

“Do you not find it strange that the feast will go on without him?” Jinyoung remarked, when they had retreated to the clearing he now considered as theirs. 

Today they did not spar. Jaebeom had sunk into a strangely dark mood since the news, and Jinyoung had thought it better to let Jaebeom work out whatever it was he was feeling without having to mind Jinyoung. 

“After three years here,” said Jaebeom, sweeping slow and easy through the first strokes of his sword drills, “I have found that I am a poor judge of what might be strange by palace standards.” 

“After four, you mean,” said Jinyoung. “Or two months shy of that, to be more precise.” 

“Have you kept track of all this time?” asked Jaebeom, and the mild surprise in his voice made Jinyoung embarrassed all of a sudden. 

“I have an excellent memory,” Jinyoung replied, trying not to sound defensive. 

“That you do.” Jaebeom turned, feet moving so quickly he seemed almost to have tripped but for the fact that he was keeping perfect balance. As he swung his blade Jinyoung could feel the force of the air it displaced. Even now, two months shy of four years on, Jinyoung felt he would never tire of watching Jaebeom. 

“I have always wondered,” said Jinyoung, “about the circumstances of your coming here. Surely Lord Ahn Hyeon’s forces would have benefited from a skilled fighter such as yourself.”

Rather than answering immediately, Jaebeom kicked himself off of the ground in two steps and twisted round in a graceful arc, treading air like it was water, before landing neatly on his feet. 

“I have told you before, of the men who taught me to use a musket,” said Jaebeom. “The ones I called my brothers.”

“Yes,” Jinyoung replied. Contrary to the rumours, Jaebeom had never been one of the _chakho_. He had, however, run with them for a spell, after his master had been killed in a futile duel to establish the best swordsman in Joseon. 

“A warrior must fight for something, my brothers used to say,” said Jaebeom. “And they chose, in the end, to fight for Lord Ahn Hyeon. As a gesture of gratitude, Lord Ahn Hyeon agreed to send me to safety. I have not heard from them since.”

And now Jinyoung realised the reason for Jaebeom’s solemnity. “Do you think your brothers were among the five hundred men?” 

Jaebeom paused, and sheathed his sword. “I do not know,” he said. “My hope is that they live. But I doubt I shall ever see them again.” 

They returned to Jinyoung’s quarters in silence, Jaebeom seemingly still sunk in his memories. 

_A warrior must fight for something_, thought Jinyoung. He did not dare ask what Jaebeom fought for.

  
**Now**

The morning brings uncertain respite, that of waking briefly from a nightmare while knowing that the darkness will yet sink them back into it. When Jinyoung closes his eyes he can still see the horde of monsters sprinting across the bridge towards him. He does not know how Jaebeom had found him, only that he had been saved from certain death by an expertly fired arrow and Jaebeom sweeping Jinyoung up onto his horse.

The rest of the night had passed in a ghastly blur. They had tried, on Jaebeom’s suggestion, to seek shelter at the barracks, only to be turned away by the magistrate’s deputy, along with the desperate crowd surging around them. And then the monsters had fallen upon the people surrounding them, and Jinyoung and Jaebeom had escaped only by leaping into the river and swimming to an islet where the creatures could not follow. 

At the first sign of daylight, the monsters had fled, leaving behind a still and crushing silence. 

“If the physician Hyoyeon is right,” says Jaebeom, reaching over to help Jinyoung to his feet, “it should be safe for us to return to the shore.”

“She has not been wrong thus far,” Jinyoung replies. If Jaebeom continues to steady Jinyoung’s arm for longer than he needs to, Jinyoung says nothing. 

“And Physician Lee’s journal?” Jaebeom asks. “Was it as she said?” 

“I regret that I did not have the opportunity to retrieve it,” says Jinyoung. He takes a deep breath. “But my father is dead. I fear Prime Minister Cho may have used the resurrection plant to turn him into something worse.”

Jaebeom’s eyes widen. “Will you return to the capital?” 

It would be easy to find horses, Jinyoung supposes; to return to Jiyulheon for Physician Lee’s journals and then begin the two-day ride back to Hanyang. But he keeps thinking back to those moments outside the barracks, to the crushing despair and outrage he had felt as the magistrate’s deputy had rained arrows down on the crowd to keep them from scaling the walls. 

He knows how the deputy must have justified it to himself – better for some of them to survive than for all to die for the sake of some peasants. And in the face of that indifference, they had all been abandoned to the same fate, commoner and Crown Prince alike. 

“No,” says Jinyoung. “I will stay. The disease must be contained by nightfall.”

“Of course,” says Jaebeom, after a pause. For the briefest of moments, he seems almost proud, but his expression turns worried almost immediately. “Then there is no time to lose.” 

They hurry through deserted paths towards the town centre of Dongnae. Signs of the night’s carnage lie everywhere Jinyoung looks. 

Jaebeom had tried to apologise, before dawn, for having allowed Jinyoung to return to Jiyulheon alone, but Jinyoung had refused to let him. Now he just moves grimly alongside Jinyoung, staying so close that their elbows occasionally knock against each other. Of this, too, Jinyoung says nothing. 

They arrive at the magistrate’s office to find a crowd gathered there, as the magistrate and his deputy question Hyoyeon and another man who seems to have been involved in the initial outbreak at Jiyulheon. 

“My lord, you must punish them for their crimes,” the magistrate’s deputy is saying, jabbing a finger at the man. “Knowing what they knew, how could they have left the bodies without disposing them?” 

“I care not about being punished,” says the man. “But is it not more pressing that we get rid of the bodies? When the sun sets, more monsters will come.”

“Could we… could we bury them quickly?” asks the magistrate. With his robes still in slight disarray and fear so clearly written on his face, it is painfully evident how young he is. 

“I was told this is only the magistrate’s second day in office,” Jaebeom murmurs to Jinyoung. “He is a cousin by marriage to one of the Haewon Cho clan.” 

“If you bury them, they will climb out,” the man tells the magistrate. “You must cut off their heads, or burn them.”

There are murmurs from the crowd. 

“_Burn_ the bodies?” an elderly woman in fine silks exclaims, stepping forward. “Who are you to decide this? My precious son is our family’s only son for three generations. If you so much as lay a finger on his body, you will answer to me.”

“And also to me!” shouts another man. “How dare you even think of desecrating the bodies of our families?”

The _arrogance_, Jinyoung thinks, to still be concerned about such things at a time like this. 

The magistrate turns to his deputy with a helpless look.

“Ah,” says the deputy. “Perhaps, my lord, we could… burn the bodies of the peasants and bury the bodies of the noblemen deep into the ground.”

“But how will we differentiate the nobles from the peasants?” asks the magistrate.

“I refuse to endure this any longer,” Jinyoung says to Jaebeom, who nods and pushes through the crowd in order for Jinyoung to pass.

“We can separate the bodies in silk from those in rags –” the deputy is still saying. 

“Someone responsible for the people's safety is this incompetent?” says Jinyoung, striding directly towards the deputy and striking him in the face. 

As the deputy falls to the ground, Jinyoung draws his sword, causing the surrounding guards to rush forward. But before they can even think to raise their weapons, Jaebeom is there, slicing cleanly through one guard’s spear. 

“The instant you draw your weapons I will have your heads.”

The guards exchange looks, and back away. 

“Who are you that you dare do this?” cries the deputy, clutching his jaw. 

“You are not only incompetent but despicable,” Jinyoung spits, holding his sword to the deputy's throat. “When you locked the doors to the barracks last night, did you think of the countless innocent people who died?” 

“If – if I had opened the gates, the soldiers would have been in danger,” replies the deputy. 

“Firing an arrow at me is punishable by death and the annihilation of your family,” Jinyoung says coldly. “You have committed treason.”

“By the way,” stammers the young magistrate, “who exactly are you?” 

Jinyoung reaches into his robes and flings his identity tag down at the magistrate’s feet. He waits as the magistrate fumbles for it, and watches realisation dawn on his face when he recognises the four-clawed dragon. 

“You– you–” the magistrate begins. He looks around in panic, and then falls face down on the ground. “It is an honour to greet the Crown Prince!”

A wave of confusion passes through the crowd. 

“What are you doing?” the magistrate shouts. “He is the Crown Prince!” 

There is scrambling and surprise as every person present sinks to their knees and bows. 

“I should kill you right this instant,” Jinyoung tells the deputy, “but we will need all the hands we have.” He lifts his sword, allowing the deputy to rearrange himself into a proper bow. “How many soldiers are alive?”

“Fifty, Your Royal Highness,” says the head guard who had, earlier, been wise enough to back away from Jaebeom. 

“Have every soldier search for bodies, and burn them immediately,” Jinyoung tells him. 

“You cannot do that, Your Royal Highness,” pleads the woman from earlier.

“I understand how you feel,” says Jinyoung. “You have lost your family. But we must burn them to avoid future harm.” He turns to the magistrate. “Light the signal fires. Send messengers to spread the word and request support so that we can quarantine Dongnae. And transport survivors to safety using the boats on either quayside. We must do this before nightfall.”

The magistrate jerks up. “I, Kim Yugyeom, the magistrate of Dongnae,” he bellows, far louder than strictly necessary, “shall heed Your Royal Highness’ command!” 

As the guards echo Magistrate Kim’s cry, Jinyoung glances over to Jaebeom, who gives him a tense smile. This is the best plan they have, but with fifty soldiers and the sun already high in the sky, it may not be enough.

  
**Then**

A year after the Crown Prince’s quarters were moved to maintain harmony between wind and water, the rains came. So heavy and persistent were they that large swathes of the country’s crops were destroyed by floods.

This time, the royal geomancers held their tongues. The Queen Consort was still not with child. 

Between the war, the drought, and now the floods, even the imperial stores were in danger of running low. The death toll in the provinces was growing. Yet there was still talk of raising taxes. 

Unable to petition the Emperor on this, Jinyoung went instead to the Chief Scholar. 

“You know not the Emperor's other considerations in coming to this decision,” the Chief Scholar told him. 

“Is it not taught that to govern even a state of a thousand chariots, we must pay strict attention to business, be true to our word, be economical in our expenditure, and love the people?” Jinyoung asked. “What more for our country?”

“I hardly think the Chief Scholar needs to be reminded of what is in the Analects,” said Prime Minister Cho, sweeping into the room. “In all likelihood, he has been studying them longer than Your Royal Highness has been born.” 

“Prime Minister,” Jinyoung acknowledged, not rising from his seat. 

“I hear you have been lobbying the court,” said Prime Minister Cho, with a smile that did not reach his eyes at all. “Telling the ministers they must think of the people.” 

“Should they not?” asked Jinyoung, trying to calm his voice, to draw himself up to display a stature befitting of a Crown Prince, even though he always felt small and on the back foot whenever he crossed paths with Prime Minister Cho. “Should a ruler not first think of his people?”

Prime Minister Cho laughed. “Your Royal Highness, have you even met the people? Spoken with them? Or perhaps you think simply distributing your food to less than a hundred of them each month is sufficient.”

“Now, now, Prime Minister,” the Chief Scholar began.

“Our virtuous Crown Prince has a heart for the commoner,” said Prime Minister Cho, “but has not so much as looked at one.” 

Later, perhaps, Jinyoung would be able to think of ten good replies to Prime Minister Cho. But in that moment, hearing those words so close to the truth, there was nothing he could say in response. He could only sit there, hands gripping his knees to conceal how they shook, until Prime Minister Cho had left.

  
**Now**

While the magistrate’s soldiers rush to carry out the orders, Jinyoung, Jaebeom and Hyoyeon retrieve Physician Lee’s journals from Jiyulheon. The records confirm it. Jinyoung’s father had passed away two days into his illness. On Prime Minister Cho’s orders, Physician Lee had used the resurrection plant to revive him.

“But if the dead servant that Physician Lee brought back to Jiyulheon had had the disease,” says Jinyoung, “would he not have attacked Physician Lee during the journey?”

“Physician Lee said – he said the disease had changed,” Hyoyeon replies, looking fearful. “Dan-i, whom His Majesty must have attacked, was simply dead. But after the patients…” she hesitates.

“Speak freely,” Jinyoung tells her.

“After the patients consumed his flesh–”

Jinyoung reels back. “Good heavens! How could anyone–”

“They were starving to death,” Hyoyeon says, distressed. “My colleague decided it was the only way. By the time I returned from gathering herbs, they were deep into their meal. Shortly after eating, they collapsed, and then revived as monsters at nightfall.”

“And now whoever they bite will suffer the same fate as well,” Jinyoung finishes. He exhales, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.

“Before Physician Lee turned, he said there was a cure,” Hyoyeon tells him. “If I am able to find the resurrection flower, perhaps we can reverse it.” 

They are interrupted by Jaebeom, who has returned from searching the compound. He nods at Hyoyeon, who bows and leaves the shed. 

“I cannot find Beom-il’s head,” says Jaebeom. “I fear that guard who survived may have taken it. If Prime Minister Cho hears that his only son is dead, his wrath will be unimaginable.” 

“I fear him not,” Jinyoung replies.

“He has already accused you of committing treason,” Jaebeom counters. 

“But I have not,” says Jinyoung, “because my father is dead. On the contrary, what he and his daughter have done is worse than treason, and I have evidence of it.”

“The journal?” 

“The journal, and Hyoyeon's testimony,” says Jinyoung.

“If you are to challenge Prime Minister Cho, you will need allies,” Jaebeom tells him. 

Jinyoung nods. “Lord Ahn Hyeon is in Sangju, is he not?” 

They take the horses and ride for the quayside with Hyoyeon. But when they arrive at the jetty there are no boats in sight, apart from the lone ship fast disappearing down the river. Close to seventy people – not one of them dressed in silk – have been left behind on the jetty, together with the head guard and some of his soldiers.

“What is that ship and who is on it?” Jaebeom calls, as they hurry over to the crowd. 

The man who had previously been questioned at the magistrate’s office – the one named Youngjae whom Hyoyeon said had helped her to escape the first outbreak at Jiyulheon – speaks. 

“Military commanders and high officials of Dongnae.” He cannot hide the resignation on his face. “They all left on that ship. They didn’t even clean up the bodies” 

The crowd stirs with panicked murmurs. 

“Is there another ship?” asks Jaebeom. 

“They all burned down last night,” says the head guard. “That was the only ship left.” 

Jinyoung looks at the faces of the people, tear-streaked and terrified, and feels his heart ache as much as he burns with anger. He had been a fool to trust that the nobles would not disobey his orders and escape at the first opportunity. He had been a fool to think they could have cleared all the bodies before nightfall. 

“We must find a place for these people to hide before sunset,” he says. “What about the barracks?” 

“They tore down the walls of the barracks to repair the ship,” says the guard. “It will not be safe there.” 

“We could go to Jiyulheon,” Hyoyeon says. “The clinic walls were sufficient to keep the creatures in for three nights. It should be sufficient to keep them out.”

Jinyoung exchanges a look with Jaebeom. There is no other option. “We will go to Jiyulheon,” he says. “Anyone who can walk, will walk. The old and sick we will carry on wagons.” 

And so, with the sun growing lower in the sky every moment, they begin their journey to Jiyulheon. It is not an overly long distance from the riverside up the mountain, but progress is slow because of the size of the group, many of whom are young children or very old. Youngjae proves resourceful and has managed to locate weapons from the barracks and a second horse and wagon to supplement the one they already have, but it, too, quickly becomes full once loaded with people and their possessions. 

Jinyoung walks ahead of the group with Jaebeom beside him, trying to set a brisk enough pace that will not be too difficult to follow. He wishes, now, that Jaebeom would walk close to him as he had on their way back into Dongnae, for Jaebeom’s reassuring hand on his elbow to steady him. It would not distract him from thinking about the consequences should they fail to reach Jiyulheon in time, but it would be a comfort nonetheless. 

“We will be in time,” Jaebeom says, seeming once again to understand Jinyoung’s thoughts.

“Thank you–” Jinyoung begins, but he is interrupted by a scream. 

The little girl who had been walking together with Hyoyeon is now hiding behind Hyoyeon’s skirt, one hand pointing towards something beneath a nearby rock. One by one, the people begin to cry out in fear as they catch sight of what she is pointing at. 

Under the surrounding rocks, in every dark crevice along the path, dozens of creatures lie asleep. 

Jinyoung looks up at the sky. The sun is all but disappearing behind the mountain. 

“Run!” he shouts. “Run now! Run to Jiyulheon without stopping!”

Those who are able-bodied begin to run. Hyoyeon sweeps up the little girl in her arms, while Youngjae picks up another. At the end of the column, however, the men leading the wagons have only just managed to help the last elderly woman up onto the back of it. 

“You must hurry as well,” Jaebeom tells Jinyoung, but Jinyoung is already dashing towards the wagons, taking the reins of the horse that is pulling the second wagon so that he can lead it along the path.

“Help him,” Jinyoung calls to Jaebeom, gesturing towards the man by the first wagon. “The others around, push!” 

Jaebeom gets behind the first wagon and pushes, and together they lead the horses into as fast a trot as they can manage. Up ahead, the rest of the people continue tearing towards Jiyulheon. The horses spring into a gallop, and it is all Jinyoung can do to lead his one straight as he runs alongside it. The clattering of wagons and the sound of the horses hooves are deafening. 

There is a sudden jerk, and Jinyoung finds himself tugged backwards as one of the wheels of his wagon gets stuck in a hole along the path. The people in the wagon are flung forward, and Jinyoung barely manages to hold on to the horse’s reins as it rears up on his hind legs.

“Your Royal Highness!” Jaebeom shouts, leaving the first carriage to continue on and dashing towards Jinyoung. 

He is joined just then by Youngjae, who must have deposited the child at Jiyulheon and is now tearing towards them in a dead sprint. 

“Help them over there,” Jaebeom tells Youngjae, as he rushes over to Jinyoung.

Together, Jaebeom and Youngjae try to lift the wagon free, while Jinyoung tries to calm the horse. But the hole is too deep, and the wagon too heavy. On their third attempt Jaebeom pauses, and turns towards Jinyoung.

“You must go on ahead,” he says, pointing at the closest rock. “The monsters are beginning to awaken.”

Jinyoung looks over and sees that Jaebeom is right. The bodies are now moving, grunting and groaning as they stir awake.

One of the women, the one with the broken leg who is leaning against an elderly man for support, begins to sob. 

“Please go,” says Jaebeom urgently. “You _must_, Your Royal Highness.”

For a moment Jinyoung almost considers it; the fear clawing in his chest is so great. And then he looks over at Youngjae, still straining to lift the wagon, and its terrified passengers huddling together beside it, and knows that he cannot. 

“What are you doing?” he shouts at one of the other guards who is standing by helplessly, as he runs round to the back of the wagon. “Push!” 

Jaebeom follows Jinyoung. “Please save yourself,” he pleads, even as Jinyoung braces his hands beneath the end of the wagon and tries to lift it with all his might. Jaebeom’s voice is almost a whisper. “I beg of you.”

“I will not be like them,” Jinyoung cries raggedly, thinking of the Dongnae nobles; of the Haewon Cho clan, as he pushes against the wagon. “I will _not_ abandon these people!” 

Jaebeom joins him, as does Youngjae and the guard. Together they push, and with a great collective cry they manage to dislodge the wheel from the hole. Quickly as they can, they help the passengers clamber back onto the wagon. The last woman has barely boarded it when the monsters begin to climb from their hiding places.

“Run!” Jinyoung bellows as Youngjae pulls the horse along in a gallop, sprinting beside it, while Jinyoung and Jaebeom continue pushing the wagon from behind. The creatures are now tearing after them, getting closer each time Jinyoung glances back. 

“Look out!” the woman with the broken leg shouts. Ahead of them, another creature rolls down the hillside and onto the path, running straight for Youngjae. Jaebeom unsheathes his sword immediately and begins to sprint to the front, but Youngjae instead tugs the horse to one side such that it knocks over the creature and immediately tramples it. 

As two more creatures sprint towards them from the front, the guard beside Jinyoung reaches for his musket. But before he can even fire a shot, the creature launches itself at the guard, knocking him to the ground. Jaebeom, in the meantime, leaps towards the second creature and slices its head clean off. 

The horde behind them is fast approaching. 

“Take the reins,” Youngjae shouts at one of the men in the wagon, before sprinting to the back to pick up the fallen musket. 

To Jinyoung's astonishment, Youngjae leaps onto the back of the wagon and begins to tamp and load the musket with fluid ease. He raises the musket, takes aim, and fires at the nearest creature, which had slid in from the side of the hill. It is almost on Jinyoung; he can hear it coming ever closer – 

The shot goes perfectly through its head, and it crumples to the ground. 

“Jiyulheon is in sight!” shouts the man at the front of the wagon. 

As they run up the path towards the front doors, however, the creatures seem almost to speed up. One of them seems faster than the others, breaking ahead and coming straight for Jinyoung. Youngjae loads his musket as quickly as he can. 

There is a roaring in Jinyoung’s ears as the creature reaches for him, snarling ravenously. 

Youngjae fires at it.

All that comes is an empty click. 

Then Jaebeom is there, leaping over the wagon to slice off the creature’s head. He tumbles as he lands, and for a heart-stopping moment it seems like the rest of the horde will reach him. 

“Jaebeom!” Jinyoung shouts, letting go of the cart to run back. 

“Run,” Jaebeom bellows back, scrambling to his feet and sprinting, catching Jinyoung’s arm and pulling him along in a headlong dash towards Jiyulheon’s doors. 

They make it in, collapsing side by side in the dirt of the courtyard. Two of the soldiers shut the gate at the last second, and brace against the terrible force of several dozen creatures flinging themselves against it. 

“You fool,” Jaebeom says, forgetting decorum, forgetting the others around them, as panic gives way to relief. He is still clasping Jinyoung’s arm to his chest. “You utter fool.” 

A second longer and he would have lost Jaebeom. The thought grips Jinyoung like ice. His heart is pounding in his ears, and he feels, suddenly, like he might be ill. 

He swallows back his distress. This is not the time for him to fall apart. 

“Will you help me up?” he says, when he can trust himself to speak. 

As Jaebeom helps Jinyoung to stand, Youngjae and the other men reinforce the gate with every heavy object they can find. The horde outside continues clamouring for entry, their snarls rising into the night sky. 

Jinyoung draws his sword. “Have the elderly and children hide in the shed,” he calls. “Anyone who can fight, take up a weapon.”

  
**Then**

“Would you leave, if you had the chance?” asked Jinyoung.

It was the anniversary of his mother's death. Earlier in the day, Jinyoung had made the journey to her grave, which lay in a separate plot just outside the burial grounds for royalty. Each year was the same – he would stand before the grave of a woman he hardly had the chance to know, and think about the paths of a person's life.

And as he had stood there that morning, he had remembered what Jaebeom had told him about coming to the palace, how he had been sent here to safety. He had thought, then, about the sorrow on Jaebeom's face when he had spoken about his brothers.

“I do not understand,” said Jaebeom, looking up from sharpening his sword. “Are you unwell? Was the food you had at dinner not agreeable?”

In the evening light, the trees seemed to come aflame in their autumnal glory. From where Jinyoung was seated, Jaebeom with his back against the sun seemed almost outlined in glowing gold.

“If you had the chance to leave the palace,” Jinyoung repeated, “would you take it?”

He would grant to Jaebeom what his mother would never have gotten, as a court lady who had found favour with the Emperor. It was only right, he thought.

But Jaebeom just laughed, as if Jinyoung had made a joke. “What do you mean? Where would I go?”

“I know not,” said Jinyoung, slightly annoyed that Jaebeom was _amused_ by this. “Wherever you wish, I suppose. To search for your brothers, or to prove yourself a swordsman, I care not. Or, as you said once, to find something to fight for.”

Jaebeom blinked, and peered curiously at Jinyoung. “You mean this seriously,” he said.

“Yes,” Jinyoung snapped. “Why would I jest about something like this?”

“Why indeed,” Jaebeom replied, his voice growing suddenly cold.

“I have upset you,” said Jinyoung.

Jaebeom rose to his feet. “Was it your intention for me to be pleased by this?” he asked, pacing across the clearing. “Did you think, after five years of service, that I so desperately wished to be free?”

“No,” said Jinyoung miserably, “I only meant that if you had any reason to leave, I would gladly let you.”

“You do not sound at all glad,” said Jaebeom.

_No_, Jinyoung wanted to say. It would be a terrible loss to him if Jaebeom really went. But it was more important to Jinyoung that the choice was Jaebeom's to make.

Jaebeom was gazing at Jinyoung now with an unreadable expression on his face. Then he shook his head as if to banish some stray thought.

“I know not how I can say this more plainly,” said Jaebeom, coming over to Jinyoung and sinking to his knees. 

“Don't–” Jinyoung began.

“My place is here,” said Jaebeom, looking at Jinyoung with eyes so sincere and solemn that Jinyoung found himself wanting to look away. “For as long as you will it. Do you understand, Your Royal Highness?”

Jinyoung nodded, his heart filled with unspeakable relief.

Jaebeom rose to his feet. “You have always been dramatic,” he told Jinyoung, “but I hardly expected this.”

“I am not dramatic,” Jinyoung retorted, and scowled when Jaebeom had simply laughed.

_For as long as you will it_, Jaebeom had said. That night, Jinyoung folded those words into his heart.

  
**Now**

The gates of Jiyulheon hold fast till dawn. With the first rays of sunshine come the sounds of the horde outside scurrying away for cover.

While the others make camp with the supplies they have brought, Jinyoung retires to the room that was once Physician Lee’s, and sits, exhausted, on the floor. Just moments prior, the survivors had gathered in the courtyard to thank him for saving them; man, woman and child all bowing deeply in gratitude. Looking out at them, Jinyoung had felt not pride but a terrible sense of responsibility. 

Jaebeom slides open the door. The expression on his face – Jinyoung has not seen him grin with such delight in what feels like an age. 

“What has happened?” asks Jinyoung. “What has brought you such joy?” 

“I asked Youngjae where he learned to shoot like that,” says Jaebeom. His voice is shaking with excitement. “He is the youngest brother of Youngshin, one of the _chakho_ who took me in.”

Jaebeom’s happiness is contagious; Jinyoung surges to his feet. “And is his brother alive?” 

“Yes,” says Jaebeom. “He survived the war three years ago. But he was wounded, recently, and Youngjae has been coming to Jiyulheon for medicine on his behalf.” 

“That is most excellent news,” says Jinyoung, beaming at Jaebeom. “Send for him, I will thank him for his help.”

Jaebeom goes, and return with Youngjae. Now that they are no longer fearing for their lives, Jinyoung is able to take a closer look at him. He is only a youth, Jinyoung realises, probably several years younger than Jinyoung. Yet there is a hardened look about him, a sharpness to his gaze that reminds Jinyoung somehow of Jaebeom.

And like Jaebeom, this Youngjae apparently has no qualms about making eye contact with royalty. 

“I wish to thank you,” says Jinyoung. “You saved my life.”

“As did you,” Youngjae replies, and when Jaebeom nudges him he adds, “Your Royal Highness.” 

“I hear that Jaebeom knew your brother,” says Jinyoung. “I sincerely hope that he is well.” 

“He was still hauling himself up trees even with that leg of his, the day I left,” Youngjae says, “so I reckon he’s surviving.” 

Jinyoung nods, not failing to see the smile on Jaebeom’s face at the mention of Youngshin. 

“If I may, Your Royal Highness,” ventures Youngjae after an uncertain pause, “the walls of Jiyulheon may keep the creatures out for now, but there is still the problem of supplies. The people have brought what they have, and I took what I could carry from the storehouse at the barracks, but there was not much to begin with.” 

“Can we forage, in the daytime?” asks Jinyoung.

“We can, but it will not be enough,” says Youngjae. “Perhaps we could hold out for a week, if we are careful with our rationing and supplement it with whatever we can find. But we will need to get the people somewhere safer, somewhere more fortified.”

“Even if we were certain of reaching one of the cities, and even if we know that it is not overrun,” says Jaebeom, “the journey will be hard, especially for the children and the elderly. If we had more horses, and more men–”

“We have two horses,” says Youngjae. “Two people could ride out, scout the area and return with reinforcements. Some of the people are injured; Hyoyeon could go as well in search of medicine.”

Jinyoung glances over at Jaebeom. It is a sound enough plan. But among the group of survivors, only a precious few might be skilled and fast enough riders for the distance they are contemplating. Furthermore, to convince some city official to send reinforcements would require someone of sufficient authority; Jaebeom, at the very least. And if Jaebeom is to go –

“You are _not_ coming with me on this mission,” says Jaebeom, with his annoying knack for guessing what Jinyoung is about to do. 

“I fail to see how you can stop me,” Jinyoung replies. 

Jaebeom sighs. “Your Royal Highness, the entire point of having a guard is so that you are kept safe.” 

“Precisely,” says Jinyoung. “Which is why _I_ am going on this mission, and you shall come guard me.” 

Youngjae, who has been watching them with curious fascination, pipes up. “I would be happy to keep things running while you both are gone.” 

To his credit, he shrinks back only a little under the full force of Jaebeom’s glare. 

They prepare to set off at once, but not before Jinyoung has gone with Youngjae to inspect the rest of the food supplies the survivors have managed to bring with them. There is precious little. Even the grain that Youngjae had managed to carry from the barracks was only whatever the nobles had left behind in their earlier escape.

“A week, you said?” Jinyoung asks.

“We are used to little,” Youngjae replies. “It will be made to last.”

Jinyoung turns to Jaebeom. “Have you still got the _yukpo_ in your pack?” 

“Yes, but there is not much,” Jaebeom replies.

“Set aside quarter-rations for two days' riding,” Jinyoung tells him. “The rest we will leave for Youngjae to distribute.”

“_Meat_,” Youngjae exclaims, when Jaebeom hands over the package. 

“My only comfort now is that the sound of our horses' galloping will at least drown out the rumbling of your stomach,” Jaebeom tells Jinyoung, but the look he gives Jinyoung is one of pride.

Hyoyeon is waiting for them by the gate, her trowel and basket slung across her shoulders. “The children are asking if we will return, Your Royal Highness,” she tells Jinyoung, with a glance round to the courtyard which suggests that she does not mean just the children.

“We will,” says Jinyoung, turning to the crowd that has gathered to watch them go. “You have my word.”

They mount their horses, Hyoyeon riding double behind Jaebeom, and set off.

As planned, they follow the Nakdong River north, in hopes of finding a well-fortified town along the route to Sangju. After a day’s riding, however, it becomes apparent that the one thing the young magistrate had managed to do had been to successfully sound the alarm. Every neighbouring village and town they pass through is empty, even the ones that do not bear visible signs of having been attacked by the creatures. 

“If we do not find a safe place for the survivors at Jiyulheon to move to, at least we can bring back supplies,” says Jaebeom, after they have made camp for the night. Hyoyeon has wandered some distance off to gather herbs. She had, earlier, taken a selection of rarer ingredients that had been left behind at a medicine shop in one of the larger abandoned towns. From what they have seen, it does not appear that the creatures have yet reached this part of the country. 

“Yes,” says Jinyoung. “And we can venture out again after.”

“There was a storehouse up that hill earlier–” Jaebeom begins, only to be interrupted by a scream from some distance away. 

They both turn. “Hyoyeon,” Jinyoung says, leaping to his feet. 

They run through the rushes towards the sound, Jaebeom with his sword at the ready, to find Hyoyeon backing away from a blood- and dirt-soaked creature that is staggering towards her. 

“Get away!” Hyoyeon shouts, jabbing her trowel frantically at it. 

The creature groans. 

It is a decidedly human-sounding groan. 

Jaebeom steps in front of Jinyoung and Hyoyeon, sword outstretched.

The creature stops, and raises its hands. Its eyes widen in recognition.

So do Jinyoung’s. “Is that–” 

“Your Royal Highness!” cries Kim Yugyeom, magistrate of Dongnae, before collapsing onto his knees.

  
**Then**

“Tell me a story,” Jinyoung said.

The petitions had been long that day, not because of any particularly complex matter but because the ministers were squabbling again. It was the height of summer, and Jinyoung had thrown open the rear window of his quarters in the hopes of some breeze.

“You are in a whimsical mood,” remarked Jaebeom. 

“No,” said Jinyoung, “I am very vexed, and in need of distraction.” 

“I am not a good storyteller,” said Jaebeom.

Jaebeom was, in fact, rather awful. He had no patience for descriptions of things and no sense of dramatic tension, always ending his stories in the most abrupt and sometimes baffling ways. But Jinyoung would much prefer Jaebeom’s unvarnished telling of things, after a day of nothing but circuitous quibbling. 

“You will not get any better if you do not at least try,” Jinyoung told him. 

“I had no idea I was trying to get better,” Jaebeom replied.

“Try,” said Jinyoung, and smiled when Jaebeom relented.

“Do you torture me now that I have said I will not leave you?” Jaebeom muttered, settling down onto the floor. 

Jinyoung pretended not to have heard him, and shut his book in anticipation. 

Jaebeom sighed. “There was once a boy who was...” He paused. “There once lived a boy who was apprenticed to a swordsman–”

“Was his name Jaebeom?” Jinyoung asked in his most innocent voice.

“_No_,” said Jaebeom. “His name was–” He paused again, looking flustered. “He does not have a name, for the purposes of this story.”

“All right,” said Jinyoung, resting his chin on his hand. “A nameless boy, then.” 

Jaebeom glared at Jinyoung. “Kindly do not interrupt. And do not smile at me so.”

“I apologise,” Jinyoung replied, but found he was neither willing nor able to suppress the grin on his face. He shifted his fingers to cover his mouth instead. 

“The boy's mother thought that it might improve his standing in life if he were to learn to be a swordsman,” Jaebeom continued. “But his master was a lout and a drunkard, with little interest in passing on whatever skills he might have.” He stopped again, this time to give Jinyoung a pained look. “Must I go on?”

“Please,” said Jinyoung.

“But still the boy trained, because that was what he was there to do. And what he did manage to learn, he practised. And then one day, many years later, his master was visited by another swordsman, who challenged him to a duel. And–”

“Tell me more about the duel,” said Jinyoung encouragingly, “that must have been exciting.”

Jaebeom thought about this for a moment. “It was very long.”

“And?”

“They were evenly matched, and both of them died.”

Jinyoung resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. “All right,” he said, “and what happened to the boy?”

“The other swordsman had come with his best student, and when the duel had ended, the student swore to take revenge on the man who had killed his esteemed teacher, the greatest swordsman in the country. But since the boy's master was already dead, he challenged the boy instead.

“And that,” Jaebeom concluded, “was how the boy discovered that he had trained under the greatest – or the second greatest – swordsman in the country.”

For a moment Jinyoung just stared at Jaebeom, waiting for him to continue. Then the moment passed, and it became clear that Jaebeom did not intend to.

“And _that_ is where you have chosen to end,” said Jinyoung in disbelief.

“Yes,” Jaebeom replied, with a satisfied look.

“But what happened to the boy?” cried Jinyoung. “Did he fight the other student?” 

“Does it matter? He learned the truth about his master,” said Jaebeom, rising to his feet.

“Tell me another story,” Jinyoung demanded. “Tell me the story of what happened next.”

Jaebeom only smiled, and said, “It is late, Your Royal Highness.”

And, ignoring Jinyoung’s outraged protests, Jaebeom gathered up his things and prepared to retire for the night.

“You have left me even more vexed than before,” Jinyoung said accusingly, as Jaebeom was about to leave the room. 

“But, Your Royal Highness,” said Jaebeom, in the most respectful of tones, “I never claimed that I was any good.”

**Now**

Jinyoung draws his sword. “Did you not once think of the people you abandoned?” he asks, his voice harsh with anger.

“Your Royal Highness, he is not even worth killing,” says Jaebeom, touching his hand to Jinyoung’s arm. He turned to question Magistrate Kim. “Did you not run for your life? What happened to you?”

Magistrate Kim gives a trembling bow as Jinyoung sheaths his sword. “Well… the disease spread. On the ship.” 

“What do you mean?” asks Jinyoung.

“That noble lady who had lost her only son had brought his infected corpse onto the ship, in a chest,” says Magistrate Kim. “It got out, and infected everyone on board. Only I was able to make it out alive.”

Jinyoung and Jaebeom exchange glances. “Where is the ship now?” Jinyoung asks. 

“I know not,” says Magistrate Kim. “I leapt from it, and swam to shore.” 

“If the ship passed this point at nightfall yesterday and has not yet run aground, the river will have carried it very far by now,” says Jaebeom. 

Jinyoung goes cold. “Even to Sangju?”

“That is what I fear,” Jaebeom replies. “But the officials at Sangju should also have seen the signal fires and received the message about the disease.”

“The signal fires, yes,” says Magistrate Kim, “but messages were sent only to the surrounding towns and city-fortresses, but not as far as to Sangju.”

Jinyoung jerks forward as if to strike Magistrate Kim, but Jaebeom gives him a quelling look. 

“Are you not able even to do one thing right?” Jinyoung asks instead, clenching his hands into fists.

Magistrate Kim cowers, shielding his head with his hands. “I deserve death, Your Royal Highness!”

Jinyoung looks down at this pitiful sight, and feels his rage abruptly drain from him, only to be replaced by a hollow dread. He has a terrible decision ahead of him.

“There has been far too much of that,” he says, turning away from Magistrate Kim. “Hyoyeon, if you would please tend to him. Give him some of our water and food.”

Jaebeom follows as Jinyoung returns to their camp. “We must warn the officials in Sangju,” he tells Jinyoung. “If they are unprepared and the monsters get into the city, the consequences will be catastrophic. If Mungyeong Saejae, the main mountain pass leading to Hanyang, falls, the disease will reach the capital in no time.”

“Sangju is at least a day’s hard riding away,” Jinyoung replies. “In the meantime, the people in Jiyulheon are waiting.” 

“Youngjae is with them,” says Jaebeom. “From what I know of his brother, I trust that he will do anything to ensure that they survive.”

“I gave them my word.”

“If we go to Sangju,” counters Jaebeom, “we could return to Jiyulheon with more men, as well as horses and wagons. Perhaps with the loan of a ship we could travel twice as fast by river–”

“Yes, perhaps,” Jinyoung replies. “But if we are delayed in any way, or if Sangju is overrun despite our efforts, we will not return in time. Don't you see? We would be abandoning them to their deaths.” 

“Your Royal Highness,” Jaebeom says gravely, “I know, better than anyone else, how much you desire to keep your people safe. But to not warn Sangju would place us all in far greater danger.” 

Jaebeom speaks the truth. They both know it. Jinyoung turns away from Jaebeom and shuts his eyes, attempting to will away his fear, and exhaustion, and the deepening sense that whatever he does will not be _enough_. He feels he will fly apart from the weight of it all. 

“All we can do is to try,” Jaebeom says, in a quiet voice. And Jinyoung feels Jaebeom's hand come to hover near the middle of his back, a barest touch through the layers of Jinyoung's clothes. 

He lets himself lean into it for several desperate seconds; lets Jaebeom's palm rest firm and steady against him. He breathes; feels Jaebeom move his thumb just once in a slow and calming stroke.

Then Jinyoung shifts, and Jaebeom drops his hand. 

He turns to Jaebeom. _Thank you_, he wants to say. 

“We ride for Sangju,” he says instead. “Prepare to set off at once.”

But they cannot very well leave Magistrate Kim to fend for himself in the rushes, so they must decide how their party is to proceed.

“Come now,” Jinyoung tells Jaebeom, “surely you are not truly thinking of having three people ride on one horse.”

“No,” Jaebeom replies, “but there are considerations about propriety–”

“The dead rise as flesh-eating monsters and you are concerned about propriety?” asks Jinyoung. “_You_?”

“You are the Crown Prince!” Jaebeom protests. 

“As I am well aware,” Jinyoung replies. “And the Crown Prince would prefer to ride with the person who is _not_ covered in blood and heaven knows what else.” 

Magistrate Kim, who has clearly tried to clean up by the river but has only succeeded in making himself very damp, glances down at his clothes in embarrassment. Hyoyeon looks uncertainly at Jaebeom. 

“Fine,” says Jaebeom, mounting his steed and reaching over to haul Magistrate Kim up behind him just a little too roughly. 

“Hold on,” Jinyoung tells Hyoyeon as he helps her up, ignoring Jaebeom’s dissatisfied silence. 

They set off, at a slower pace this time now that both the horses are carrying additional passengers. The moon hangs full and low in the night sky, its dim light rippling along the river as they go. 

Jinyoung thinks, as he rides, of how far behind the intrigue at the palace seems now. It has been barely a week since he set off from the capital, and yet it feels like a lifetime has passed. Now all he knows is this relentless fear, as a disease spills across the country and an abominable hunger awakens in the dark. 

It occurs to Jinyoung that this new state of affairs is, in some ways, not so different from what it was before. 

Jaebeom has pulled just slightly ahead, not so far that he cannot fall back should Jinyoung call out to him, but enough that Jinyoung needs only to follow the course Jaebeom is setting. Clinging desperately to Jaebeom is Magistrate Kim, who is starting to look slightly ill from the constant jostling. 

“Are you quite comfortable, Hyoyeon?” Jinyoung asks, and tries not to notice the way Jaebeom’s head whips round for just a second. 

“As much as I can be, Your Royal Highness,” Hyoyeon replies. 

“Good,” says Jinyoung. They will press on through the night, and make camp at dawn. Jinyoung fixes his eyes on Jaebeom’s back, and rides as fast as his horse can carry them.

  
**Then**

The Emperor began to fall ill often, and would retire earlier than usual even when he was well. It was the effect of a hard winter, they said, and renowned physicians from across the country were summoned to attend to him.

As a dutiful son, Jinyoung would visit his father on the days he was unwell. But it was difficult, kneeling there in his father’s stiflingly warm chambers, making stilted conversation when his father was awake enough to notice him there. Mostly he sat in silence, and tried to bear his father’s irritability so that the stream of physicians and servants would not need to. 

The Queen Consort, when she did visit, said little to Jinyoung. Instead she fussed over his father and gave sharp and complicated instructions to the servants as to how they must prepare the Emperor’s meals; his medicine; his room. She did all this with an air of studied superiority, and whenever Jinyoung took his leave – as he often did when her routine grew to become unbearable – she would give him a look as if to say: _know your place_. 

It was after one of these trying days that Jinyoung was crossing the palace grounds from the Emperor's quarters, and heard a sound. 

Jinyoung paused, causing the two rows of his household attendants to come to a quick halt behind him. 

The sound had come from past an annex to the servant's quarters. It may have been a laugh, and very familiar one at that.

“Wait here,” he said, before stepping off the path to duck round the side of the building. 

As he drew closer, he began to hear the unmistakable sound of meowing.

On the steps behind the servant’s quarters sat Jaebeom, in the company of not one but four cats of varying sizes. He had a large tabby in his hands and another asleep in his lap, while a third seemed content with prowling around him, rubbing up against him as it went. The fourth, a black-and-white kitten, had clambered up onto his shoulder and was scrabbling fitfully at his robes, butting its head against his cheek. 

Jinyoung did not even know he had been holding his breath until Jaebeom looked up at him. Jaebeom smiled, and in that moment Jinyoung’s heart felt a hundred times lighter.

“I thought they’d forgotten me,” said Jaebeom, tucking the tabby close to his chest, “but it seems they still like me best.” 

“And yet the rumours that you hunted tigers still persist,” said Jinyoung, sauntering over to Jaebeom and sitting down beside him. 

“Is His Majesty well?” asked Jaebeom. 

“He will recover,” Jinyoung replied. “I cannot say the same for his head court lady, however. Between my father’s moods and the Queen Consort’s demands, she is having a ghastly time.” 

Jaebeom made a face, and leaned over so that the tabby could pour itself into Jinyoung’s lap. As he moved, the kitten on his shoulder lost and regained its balance, and batted Jaebeom on the chin as punishment. Jaebeom just laughed, and batted it back with his thumb.

Jinyoung ran his fingers gently against the tabby’s back, feeling more than hearing its answering purr. “If my father’s health remains fragile,” he said, “I fear that certain parties may become desperate.” 

“That is quite likely,” said Jaebeom, as the black cat grew tired of prowling round him and began to jostle for space in his lap. “I suppose you have given thought to what they might do?”

“Indeed,” Jinyoung replied. His thoughts had been very dark, of late. With his father ill and the Queen Consort still yet to bear a son, it was clear that the Haewon Cho clan would now look to preserve the power they had consolidated for themselves. And Jinyoung was most definitely standing in their way. 

In the face of Jinyoung’s troubled silence, Jaebeom said nothing. Instead, he quietly lifted the calico cat from his own lap and placed it in Jinyoung’s, where it wriggled up between Jinyoung’s stomach and the tabby that was already there, before going back to sleep. Then Jaebeom picked up the black cat, which gave him an imperious look but did not struggle, and deposited it into Jinyoung’s arms, causing Jinyoung to have no choice but to cradle it against his chest. 

“I see your solution to all this is simply to cover me with cats,” said Jinyoung, as he adjusted to all that languid weight. “I suppose it _is_ distracting.”

Jaebeom laughed. The kitten, which seemed somewhat shocked at the prospect of having Jaebeom all to itself, made an ungainly leap into his lap, where it lay purring while Jaebeom rubbed its cheeks and its ears. 

“Are you keeping that one for yourself, then?” Jinyoung asked.

“I would say you have quite enough, wouldn’t you?” Jaebeom replied.

“Yes,” agreed Jinyoung, peering down at the black cat in his arms and the two others jostling for space on top of his legs. “Quite.”

“Besides, this one reminds me of someone,” said Jaebeom of the black-and-white kitten, and would only smile when Jinyoung asked who.

  
**Now**

In the wee hours of the morning, they come across the ship.

It has run aground, and now lies on its side on the riverbank. They peer fearfully into it as they pass. Even in the darkness, they can see how its sail has become ragged and spattered with blood, and how its dark wood is soaked and glistening. 

The ship is also empty. 

“We cannot tarry,” says Jaebeom. “The creatures may not be far.” 

Sure enough, as if sensing their presence, distant snarls begin to rise from the nearby vegetation. 

“Ride!” shouts Jaebeom, spurring his horse into a gallop. Jinyoung follows suit. 

Hyoyeon, who has proved to be a braver and surer rider than Jinyoung had anticipated, glances round. “They are fast in pursuit, Your Royal Highness!” she cries. 

“Keep going,” Jinyoung calls to Jaebeom. “We may yet outrun them.” 

They do not anticipate, however, the group of creatures that tears out from the forest just ahead. Jinyoung's heart sinks when he sees them. Now they are not only pursued from the rear but will soon also be hemmed in against the river on their left. 

Jaebeom and Jinyoung both draw their swords. 

Jaebeom brings his horse round so that he is on Jinyoung’s right, to intercept the first onslaught of creatures. He tramples one and beheads another, but with Magistrate Kim on the horse, he cannot manoeuvre as quickly as he otherwise would. Another monster tears past him. Jinyoung slashes its neck. 

It is no use. The creatures are coming thick and fast now, and their horses rear up, overwhelmed. Jinyoung hears Magistrate Kim’s cry before he sees him tumble off the horse. 

“Look out!” Hyoyeon yells, pointing at the creature that rushes straight for Magistrate Kim. 

Magistrate Kim is saved in the nick of time by Jaebeom, who leaps off his horse to slice off the creature’s head. As Magistrate Kim scrambles towards Jinyoung and Hyoyeon, Jaebeom dispatches four more creatures with swift efficiency. 

Jinyoung’s horse rears up again in fright, and this time both he and Hyoyeon fall off it.

“Head for the water!” Jaebeom shouts, whirling round to behead two creatures in a single stroke. “There are too many of them!” 

Jinyoung scrambles to his feet, as does Hyoyeon, who grabs hold of a terrified Magistrate Kim and dashes for the river. He cuts down another creature and runs towards Jaebeom, who is fast being surrounded. Jaebeom hacks through the nearest ones – no finesse now, just brutal strokes that do their job – until he is back to back with Jinyoung. 

“I thought I said–” says Jaebeom, pulling his sword from one creature’s throat and slashing the next one, “to head for the water!”

There is a splash as Hyoyeon and Magistrate Kim must have leapt into the river, leaving the creatures that had been pursuing them groaning by the bank. 

Jinyoung does not even have time to reply. His arms feel like lead and there are still a good two dozen creatures still pressing towards them. Jaebeom is everywhere, cutting them down as quick as he can, but even he is starting to stumble under the relentless onslaught. 

If they die here, Jinyoung thinks, his mind strangely detached from all that his body is doing, perhaps Hyoyeon and Magistrate Kim will still reach Sangju in time to sound the alarm.

He feels Jaebeom grab his arm, dragging him towards the river. It is no use; the creatures on the riverbank are now turning towards them, and even Jaebeom, fast as he is, cannot kill them all. 

A creature leaps towards Jinyoung, sending him flying onto the ground. 

Frantic, almost blind from fear, Jinyoung drops his sword in order to push the creature away from him. 

He shoves his hands against its rotting shoulders to keep its snapping jaws from his flesh.

“_JINYOUNG_!” Jaebeom shouts, but he, too, is overwhelmed. 

The creature snarls in Jinyoung's face, its jaws distended; teeth dark and bloody. It is so close that he can feel its not-breath on his skin and smell the inescapable stench of its decaying flesh.

And then, out of nowhere, a flaming arrow embeds itself in the creature's skull. 

Jinyoung shoves it off of him as more arrows come, landing in a crude barrier around the creatures that keeps them hemmed in and shrieking from the heat.

Jaebeom stabs through his own creature's head, and stands. “What–”

A dozen men appear from behind the flames, armed with scythes and spears. Methodically, they begin to cut down the creatures, aiming each time for the head. 

And amidst this group of men is a familiar figure, armed with two blades and striking down any creature who steps into his path. 

After the last of the creatures are destroyed, he stops, and looks across the burning grass and smoke at Jinyoung. 

“Your Royal Highness!” he says, and falls to his knees.

His men follow suit.

Jinyoung stares at him, hardly believing his eyes.

“Lord Ahn Hyeon, can it truly be you?”

  
**Then**

On the day it was announced that the Queen Consort was with child, Jinyoung went, alone, to the far end of the palace grounds, to a rocky slope that contained a cleft just large enough for a young boy to make his hiding place.

He had, as a child, spent many hours in that little cave, scratching drawings into the gravel with a stick and telling himself stories. Many of his favourite ones had involved heroic tales of valour – Jinyoung the great general, leading his men in victory; Jinyoung the noble swordsman, rescuing a damsel in distress. 

But the story he had most liked to tell himself had been the one about Jinyoung the normal boy, who did all the things Jinyoung had thought a normal boy might do, like go to a village festival and eat candy till he was sick, or catch goldfish out of ponds without half a dozen servants descending on him to beseech him to be safe. Jinyoung, the normal boy, who had a mother who was still alive and a father who was not a king. 

And each time before he left the cave he would find the best, most interesting stone, and add it to one of the stone piles his mother had once shown him how to stack. And he would make a wish.

It was in this cave that Lord Ahn Hyeon had found him, years ago when Jinyoung was just nine years old.

“Please come down!” Lord Ahn Hyeon had called, and even now Jinyoung could remember the shame he had felt at being discovered to be crying so inconsolably. “Must I force you down here?”

“I will be killed if I do,” Jinyoung had replied between sobs. “Everyone wants me out of the palace. If I am deposed, I will be killed. I miss my late mother.” 

Lord Ahn Hyeon had not replied, and Jinyoung had renewed his sobs. Even Lord Ahn Hyeon must have left in disgust, after seeing how weak Jinyoung was, he had thought. 

But instead there had been footsteps, and Lord Ahn Hyeon had appeared at the opening of the cave.

“You are not supposed to be here,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had said, and then he had gathered Jinyoung into a hug so tight it had squeezed the breath out of him. “This is not where you should be.”

Jinyoung remembered having to be led by the hand, half stumbling as he dragged his feet, back to his father's quarters. As they had approached the front steps, the doors had opened and Minister Cho had emerged, bowing in their direction when he caught sight of them. 

“I do not want to go there, sir,” Jinyoung said fearfully, as Minister Cho had strode away.

But even though he had strained to leave, Lord Ahn Hyeon had held firmly to his hand. 

“What you said is right,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had told him. “His Majesty has received a stack of appeals that claim you should be deposed. To make it worse, there is no one in the palace who can protect you.”

Against his will, Jinyoung had felt his own face begin to screw up with tears again.

“So you must protect yourself,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had continued. “Your Highness is not just trying to protect your own life. You are in a battle against injustice.” 

Jinyoung had looked up at Lord Ahn Hyeon then, and had caught sight of the expression on his face. It had not been the expression of an adult explaining something to a child, but of an adviser giving counsel.

“There are those who are trying to make the Crown Prince their puppet for their own interests. Fighting and winning against that evil is the only way to uphold justice.”

And Jinyoung had blinked, and nodded, and had continued to ponder those words in the years that followed. Over time, he had returned less often to the cave, to his stone piles and stories. Eventually he had stopped, after the day he had gone back and found himself too tall to sit comfortably inside it. 

He had not been deposed in the end, all those years ago. But Jinyoung had now arrived, nonetheless, back to a similar position.

This time, it was Jaebeom who found him. 

“I assume you have heard the news,” Jinyoung said when he saw Jaebeom coming, not from the gardens below but from over the low wall at the top of the slope, picking his way nimbly down to Jinyoung. 

“I came across one of the palace maids weeping in the corridor,” said Jaebeom. “She seemed to think you had left your quarters in order to take your own life.” He sounded calm, and smiled as if he was jesting, but there was a faint sheen of sweat on his brow and his breath came short like he had just been running. 

“Without first reciting my death poem in front of the imperial throne hall?” Jinyoung replied, with a mock-incredulous laugh that nonetheless betrayed a note of hysteria. “Heaven forbid.” 

“I was not aware you had been composing one,” said Jaebeom. He frowned slightly as he looked at Jinyoung, and then around the cave they were standing at.

“Yes, for many years now,” said Jinyoung dryly. “But it is disgracefully long and very badly written.”

“So I suppose you will have to stay alive until you have gotten it quite right,” said Jaebeom, crouching down to inspect a stone pile that no one had ever climbed up the slope to remove. 

“I suppose I shall have to,” Jinyoung agreed. 

And without context, without ever having been told about how Jinyoung had once passed his time here, Jaebeom picked up a small, flat stone and placed it on top of the pile. 

A kind traveller coming across a stack of stones, Jinyoung's mother had once explained, might add to a stranger's wishes to help them come true.

Watching Jaebeom do this, Jinyoung was gripped all of a sudden by an affection and a fear so great that he felt briefly faint from it. 

For if the Crown Prince were to be deposed following the arrival of a male heir, those who served him would not be spared. _Your Highness is not just trying to protect your own life_, Lord Ahn Hyeon had said. He had been referring to justice, Jinyoung knew, but did it not also apply to this?

Already he had his plans to go to the scholars, to see what threads of power still remained loyal to the throne and not to the Haewon Cho clan. 

But if he failed, he alone should be the one to suffer for it. 

“If, despite my best efforts, what I fear comes to pass,” said Jinyoung. “Give me your word that you will flee this palace and never look back.”

There was a pause, as Jaebeom's hand stilled in the gravel. When Jaebeom spoke, it was in a voice as brittle as fracturing stone.

“How can I?” he asked.

“It would give me great comfort to know–”

Jaebeom rose and stepped towards Jinyoung, so swiftly that Jinyoung had no time to move away. 

They were now standing with their faces less than a handspan apart, close enough that Jinyoung could see the tears in the corners of Jaebeom's eyes. And Jaebeom was furious, Jinyoung now saw. His face was white with it. 

“I will not offer you that comfort,” said Jaebeom roughly, raggedly. “I refuse.”

Jinyoung jerked back as if he had been struck. 

“How dare you be so cruel,” he said, his voice trembling. 

“It is you who are cruel,” Jaebeom replied. “To bid me leave – to _flee_ – in your time of need? No, Your Royal Highness. My place is here, and I will protect you to the very end.”

And this, this was what Jinyoung feared the most, he realised. More than his own death, even. 

“I would not have you die on my account,” he said, trying so hard to sound brave and strong, like the courageous prince he was supposed to be. But his words, to his ears, just sounded wretched.

“So _live_,” replied Jaebeom, in a voice so fierce that it gripped Jinyoung’s heart. “Live, and become King.”

  
**Now**

“Escaping townsfolk informed my men of the ship,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. “It was fated that we rode out when we did, to investigate.”

“Indeed,” says Jinyoung, “or we would surely have lost our lives.” 

They have ridden through the remainder of the night, Jinyoung almost nodding off to sleep on his borrowed horse several times, before arriving in Sangju, passing through the city-fortress’s gates. Seated in Lord Ahn Hyeon’s study and in the light of day, Jinyoung can see now that Lord Ahn Hyeon, still in mourning white, has grown older, his beard now mostly grey. Yet he is still as Jinyoung remembers, eyes warm and serious, with a great wit and wisdom in his voice. 

“There is a pressing matter I must speak to you about,” says Jinyoung, now that they are in private. “Perhaps you have heard that I am being accused of treason for claiming that my father is dead.”

Lord Ahn Hyeon nods carefully.

“There is no lie to it. Father has passed away. Prime Minister Cho, obsessed with power, had Physician Lee administer the resurrection flower on him, which has turned him into a flesh-eating monster,” Jinyoung tells him. “That is what started this horrific epidemic.”

Jinyoung looks up at Lord Ahn Hyeon, studies the stern and yet somehow opaque expression on his face. “Cho Hak-ju has only become more reprehensible,” he says. “You must help. I will return to the capital, punish the Haewon Cho clan, and build this kingdom anew.”

Lord Ahn Hyeon regards Jinyoung gravely for a moment. Then he speaks. 

“When was the last time you slept?”

Jinyoung blinks at him in confusion. 

“We can speak of this later,” Lord Ahn Hyeon says. “There will be time yet. But first, you must eat, and rest.”

“Yes,” says Jinyoung, startled, “of course.”

“As for the survivors at the clinic in Dongnae, I have sent my men to request the loan of a ship,” Lord Ahn Hyeon continues. “It would make the journey north far less treacherous.”

Jinyoung nods. “You have my deepest gratitude.”

Jaebeom is waiting when they emerge from Lord Ahn Hyeon’s study, with Hyoyeon and Magistrate Kim close by. Seeing Jaebeom now contrasted with Lord Ahn Hyeon’s men, it is clear how bone-tired he is, still covered in blood and dirt and pale from lack of sleep. Jinyoung suspects he himself must look much the same. 

“Escort his Highness to his quarters,” Lord Ahn Hyeon tells a servant. “And find his companions a place to rest.”

“What did Lord Ahn Hyeon say?” Jaebeom asks, as they cross the courtyard. 

“He did not give me a definite answer,” Jinyoung replies.

Jaebeom is silent for a moment. Then he says, “Hyoyeon remarked, earlier, how it seemed as if neither Lord Ahn Hyeon nor his servants had been alarmed at the sight of the ill.”

It is true, thinks Jinyoung, that the men had somehow intuited that they should use fire arrows, and had swiftly beheaded each creature. It was almost as if they had known well about the infected. 

“We will not solve any mysteries half-addled with sleep and hunger,” Jinyoung tells Jaebeom. “Get some rest. You have not been able to these past few days.”

There is a meal waiting for Jinyoung after he has washed, and changed into robes that are not the one he has been living in for days. 

It is a simple one, compared to palace standards – rice mixed with millet, a bowl of stew and several dishes of vegetables – but far more lavish compared to anything he has seen in the past days. The constant flight and worry during the past days had all but stolen his appetite, and Jinyoung had barely been able to keep down the scant pieces of _yukpo_ Jaebeom would routinely try to foist on him. Now, however, in the security of Lord Ahn Hyeon’s home, Jinyoung feels his stomach twist in hunger.

He sits and eats, quickly at first, and then slowing down when he feels his stomach, now unused to such nourishment, begin to hurt from the food. He yawns, so suddenly and widely that he startles himself. 

A shadow appears by the door. “Your Royal Highness,” comes Jaebeom’s voice. 

Jinyoung calls for him to enter and Jaebeom slips in. He is freshly scrubbed and clean, and looks almost visibly comforted by the sight of Jinyoung sitting before his meal. 

“I thought I asked that you get some rest,” Jinyoung says, even though he is secretly relieved to see Jaebeom. One week has been enough for Jinyoung to grow unused to eating his meals alone. 

“I came to see if there was anything Your Royal Highness needed,” Jaebeom replies. “Some _yukpo_, perhaps?” 

Jinyoung laughs, and gets caught in another yawn again. “Come,” he tells Jaebeom, “you must not yet have eaten and I find myself now struggling with all this food.” And when Jaebeom hesitates he adds, “I cannot stand to see this go to waste while knowing that Youngjae and the people at Jiyulheon are still trying to preserve their dwindling supplies.” 

They have never eaten together like this before, in Jinyoung’s quarters. Apart from a hasty meal at an inn long ago when Jinyoung had once ventured into the capital incognito, and the hurried bites of _yukpo_ taken during the past days’ journey, Jinyoung is not sure if he has ever seen Jaebeom eating. 

Now Jaebeom sits, takes the chopsticks and spoon that Jinyoung hands him after wiping them down with a cloth, and begins to eat. As with all other things, Jinyoung discovers, Jaebeom is quick and careful with his food, working through it rapidly with tidy mouthfuls. 

Jinyoung watches him, and smiles, and feels an overwhelming sense of well-being come over himself. Before he knows it, he is drooping off into sleep with his chin tucked towards his chest. 

He awakens in the bed. Jinyoung stretches, and blinks. He has no memory of getting onto it. He looks across the room and sees Jaebeom slumped against the wall, fast asleep himself. 

But there is no time for Jinyoung to consider if he should try to pull Jaebeom into a lying down position at the very least, because the moment is interrupted by the sound of running outside. There is a knock on the door. Jaebeom starts awake immediately. 

“Your Royal Highness,” says one of Lord Ahn Hyeon’s men, the one called Yi En, “there is a situation.” 

The Queen Consort has taken over as Queen Regent, reads the royal edict, and her first orders are to eradicate the disease terrorising the land of Gyeongsang.

“She has sent the Five Armies to seal off the western and eastern parts of Gyeongsang Province,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, as they leave his residence and proceed towards the fortress gates. “They have closed Mungyeong Saejae, the road that leads out of Gyeongsang towards the capital, as well as the mountain passes of Jungnyeong, Chupungnyeong, and Gyeripnyeong. Anyone who acts against this order will be executed on the spot.” 

“Prime Minister Cho has left the people of Gyeongsang Province to die, then,” says Jinyoung.

“Yes,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. “And there is a greater problem.”

They hear it even before they reach the southern gate. 

From beyond the wall comes the sound of hundreds of people wailing and crying, begging to be let in. 

“Yangsan, Gyeongju, Daegu, Hapcheon, Changnyeong…” says Yi En, as they climb the steps leading to the top of the fortress gate. “They came from various parts of the south to escape the epidemic.”

“All of them were hit by the epidemic?” Lord Ahn Hyeon asks the Magistrate of Sangju.

“If Changnyeong was hit,” says Jinyoung, “the infected will get here. In two days, or as soon as tonight. You must open the gate and let them in.” 

“If all parts of Gyeongsang Province were hit, there will be more refugees,” says the Magistrate. “How are we going to house and feed them all? Once we run out of food, they will start looting. There will be mayhem!”

“Do you plan to sit back and watch them die, then?” Jinyoung asks.

“If you do not open the gate,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, “the people outside the fortress will be put in danger. Open the gate.” 

“We cannot open the gate,” the Magistrate replies. “At least the people inside will survive.”

And Jinyoung feels it now, that old fury sunk cold in his bones. “I’m sure Prime Minister Cho said the same thing when he closed Mungyeong Saejae and the other mountain passes, condemning us to death,” he says. “That at least _they_ must survive.” 

“This is a sacrifice for the greater good!” the Magistrate sputters. 

“Who are you to decide whom to sacrifice?” asks Jinyoung, his voice hard. “If you lock the gate, those outside will catch the disease and die. The people inside will be trapped, and die of starvation.”

“_I_ am the Magistrate of Sangju!” 

“No,” says Jinyoung coldly. “You are no longer qualified to run this place.”

“What?” 

“I cannot let everyone die because of an incompetent official. I will protect Sangju and the people from now on.”

“By what right?” the Magistrate demands.

Jinyoung draws his sword, and holds his blade to the Magistrate’s neck. “I am the Crown Prince. I strip you of this title from this moment.”

There is a stunned silence. The Magistrate's men look fearfully at each other.

“It is the Crown Prince’s command,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. “Escort the Magistrate out.” 

Down below, the crowd of people continue to beg and moan. Jinyoung looks out at them, all worn and ragged as Jinyoung himself had been just hours before, many having travelled on foot the distance that Jinyoung had covered by horse. He knows what it is like to be on the other side of the gate, hoping desperately to be let in.

“Even if you open the gates,” says Yi En, “the fortress is not large enough to shelter all the refugees, as well as the people in the greater Sangju area.”

“You are correct,” Jinyoung replies. “It cannot. If we are to save everyone, we must protect all of Sangju.”

“The creatures will come charging in soon,” says one of the Magistrate’s deputies. “How can we protect Sangju?” 

“If I may,” says Jaebeom. “The south of Sangju is surrounded by water.” 

Jinyoung nods. “The creatures fear water and fire. If we take advantage of that, we can stop them. If we guard Byeongseong stream and the Unpo Wetlands in the south, perhaps we may all survive.”

  
**Then**

“If you are to succeed,” said the Chief Scholar, “you will need Lord Ahn Hyeon’s support. After the victory against the Japanese at the battle of Unpo Wetlands, his is a name that the people know. And that, in itself, holds power.”

“I am aware,” Jinyoung replied. 

He had travelled out of the palace to the west, under the cover of darkness, to meet with the Chief Scholar at his residences in Sungkyunkwan, and had been relieved – shocked, even – to have the Chief Scholar bring up the subject of the throne first. 

“And if Lord Ahn Hyeon supports you, many of the other Ministers will be emboldened to do so as well. I am sure of it.” 

“That is my hope,” said Jinyoung. “And also that I may count on the support of yourself and the scholars at Sungkyunkwan.” 

“You may,” the Chief Scholar replied. “The greed of the Haewon Cho clan have made the foundations of this country crooked.”

“Indeed,” said Jinyoung. “And together we shall right it.” 

It was a chilly night, the air still damp from a recent rain shower, and Jinyoung huddled for warmth in his civilian robes as he and Jaebeom made their way back to the palace. 

“I assume your discussion went well,” said Jaebeom quietly, as they walked along the deserted street. 

“Well enough,” Jinyoung replied. “We shall see if words turn to action.” 

They walked on silently for several moments. All the talk of strategy and politics had turned Jinyoung’s limbs restless, with so many thoughts and hopes jostling in his chest. He longed to be able to shrug off his growing unease. 

“I wonder what we would be doing,” said Jinyoung. “If we were really the people we are pretending to be right now. No plots, no stealing out of the palace in the dark.”

“I am sure the virtuous scholars we are disguised as have plenty to contend with,” Jaebeom replied. “As do merchants, or peasants.” 

Jinyoung paused, feeling somehow chastened. He remembered Jaebeom telling him, once, of how, when the barley crop came late, the people in his village used to scrape and boil the bark and roots of trees for nourishment.

“Of course,” he said. “I have been so perplexed by my own situation that I spoke carelessly.”

“I did not mean to cause you distress–” Jaebeom began. 

“No, you are correct,” said Jinyoung. “My worries weigh greatly on my heart but I should not have assumed that another life would be easier.” 

“A king has a king’s problems, and a farmer a farmer’s problems,” said Jaebeom.

“And what, dare I ask,” Jinyoung ventured, “might your problems be?”

Jaebeom laughed. “Oh, I do not know,” he said. “Perhaps it is having to guard a person who wants me to flee at the first chance I get.”

“I apologised for that,” said Jinyoung, feeling slightly hurt.

Jaebeom frowned. “You sent me a portion of meat dumplings.” 

“They told me that was your favourite!” Jinyoung protested. 

“It is,” said Jaebeom, “but I did not realise that sufficed as an apology.” 

“You would _demand_ that I say that I am sorry?”

The look on Jaebeom’s face was positively serene. “I demand nothing.”

Jinyoung spent the rest of the journey back in turns huffing at Jaebeom’s audacity and being mortified that Jaebeom might think him ungracious. 

Finally, when the palace side gate they were intending to slip back through was in sight, Jinyoung stopped, standing still in the middle of the path. 

“We are almost there–” Jaebeom began. 

“I am sorry,” said Jinyoung. “Truly I am.” 

Several expressions crossed Jaebeom’s face as he heard this – surprise, first, then bewilderment, and then something soft and amused. 

“Your Royal Highness,” he said, “I was only teasing.” 

“There, I said it,” Jinyoung told Jaebeom, thankful that his embarrassed flush would not be visible in the darkness. “Now accept my apology.” 

Jaebeom made a sound like the beginning of a laugh, before catching himself and arranging his expression into something as serious as Jinyoung’s. “I accept,” he said solemnly. 

“Good,” said Jinyoung, sweeping past Jaebeom and heading towards the gate, ignoring Jaebom’s quiet chuckles.

  
**Now**

There is no time to waste. Soldiers are sent out to fell bamboo for making bows and spears, and every available smithy roars with fire and the clanging of new weapons being forged. On Jinyoung’s orders, even the nobles are to take up arms.

“They will not be pleased about this,” the magistrate’s deputy – now the new Magistrate – had said.

“I care not,” Jinyoung had replied, “I would rather they keep their lives than die holding books instead of spears.” 

Across the city, every door, chest and wooden gate is kicked down and taken as material to be transported south to the Unpo Wetlands and Byeongseong stream, the only two points at which the water may be crossed by land. The bridge over Byeongseong stream is a narrow one only one carriage wide, but the crossing at Unpo, directly south of the fortress city, is a column of land that narrows to a strip ten paces long, and wide enough for ten men to cross while standing shoulder to shoulder. 

In the middle of this strip they dig a deep pit and fill it with bamboo stakes. On the Sangju side of the crossing, a barricade is being erected, on top of which most of the troops will wait. Out on the water, on either side of the crossing, more men have constructed long rafts that will be anchored along the crossing, from which they can fire at the infected as they come. 

It is to the Unpo crossing that Jinyoung goes, together with Lord Ahn Hyeon. But before they had left, he had gone to Hyoyeon to assure her that Lord Ahn Hyeon had indeed sent a boat for Dongnae, which is when he had come across the tragically comic sight of Magistrate Kim attempting to present her with a basket of herbs he had helped to gather. 

“I am amazed, my lord,” she had told Magistrate Kim, frowning as she sorted through the pile. “How is it that you have managed to pick everything but what I asked you for?” 

“But they _are_ herbs, aren’t they?” Magistrate Kim had asked, studying her face hopefully.

“I am afraid these are weeds, my lord,” Hyoyeon had replied. “I shall need to gather them myself.” 

“Take care to return by nightfall,” Jinyoung had told them, waving a hand when they attempted to bow to him. “The boat set off this morning and should reach Dongnae within a day.” 

Hyoyeon had bowed deeply. “Thank you, Your Royal Highness.”

Then, turning to Magistrate Kim, Jinyoung had added, “Kim Yugyeom, do try not to vex Hyoyeon overly.” 

As he had left them, he could not help but overhear Magistrate Kim fret to Hyoyeon over whether he had vexed the Crown Prince, too. 

The preparations are almost complete, now. Jinyoung inspects the pit, which is deeper than the height of a man, while Jaebeom, who has been helping with the building of the defences, now instructs the troops on the raft on how to shoot. 

Seven years ago, Jaebeom had told Jinyoung he was better with a musket than with his sword, but this is the first time Jinyoung is seeing it. He holds up the musket and fires, straight and true and easy, at a small piece of plank set up across the water. He hits the plank, to the admiring sounds of the soldiers around him. 

“Keep your muzzle, barrel and arm straight,” says Jaebeom, “as much as you can.”

“He was as good with guns, when I first met him,” Lord Ahn Hyeon says, when he notices Jinyoung watching Jaebeom. “Then the _chakho_ told me he was better with his sword.”

“I hear you promised them you would send him to safety,” says Jinyoung.

“Indeed,” Lord Ahn Hyeon replies.

“Do not misunderstand me when I say this, for I am immeasurably grateful for your decision,” Jinyoung tells him, with a wry smile. “But the _palace_? A place of safety?”

Lord Ahn Hyeon laughs. “Are you both not still alive and well?”

“Fire!” Jaebeom shouts, and shots ring out from the row of soldiers he is training. 

“Yes,” says Jinyoung, watching as Jaebeom goes from soldier to soldier, adjusting their posture and correcting any mistakes. “But I would rather think of him somewhere calm, and safe. Farming, perhaps. Or instructing young ones in the sword.” 

Even as he says this, he knows it would have been impossible. Jaebeom would have been a _chakho_, and perhaps he would have died in battle or – should he have survived the war – in the mountains, killed by one of the tigers he would eventually have hunted. 

He should find out from Lord Ahn Hyeon what the fate of Jaebeom’s brothers had been, Jinyoung thinks.

But Lord Ahn Hyeon speaks before Jinyoung can ask. “You have great affection for him, I can see.” 

Jinyoung feels himself going pink. “No– well– yes, but not–” he begins, then pauses to compose himself. “He has been a most loyal companion.”

“I am pleased to hear that,” Lord Ahn Hyeon says, and is thankfully called away by Yi En before he can see the way Jaebeom cranes his head round to glance at Jinyoung. 

It is almost as if Jaebeom is aware, at all times, of where Jinyoung may be standing. Jinyoung nods, and turns away quickly. 

“We will send two scouts to check the perimeter,” Yi En is saying, when Jinyoung joins him and Lord Ahn Hyeon on top of the barricade.

“Bid them be quick,” says Jinyoung. “They must ride back before sunset.” 

Already, the sun is dipping lower in the sky. Below, Jaebeom crosses to the middle of the strip in order to address the men. 

“The sun will set soon!” he calls. “Check your surroundings one more time. Do not leave your post for any reason. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, sir!” shout the men, scrambling to their positions. At the other end of the strip, two piles of neatly stacked logs are wheeled in to block the passage at the point where the land first narrows. Secured atop each pile is a pot of oil.

“Cast off the boats,” someone calls, as the men jog back from the log piles, and the archers and musketmen standing on the rafts begin to push out from shore, coming to a stop several feet away from the land before weighing anchor with heavy rocks. The opening of the stake-filled pit is covered with a frame of bamboo, with straw placed atop it.

From where Jinyoung is standing up on the barricade, the surrounding waters glow orange with the setting sun, bringing not calm, but dread. The last of the men rush inside the barricade, and the torches are lit. 

Now, they can but wait. 

The night passes in tense silence, each one of them straining to look out into the darkness. When several hours have passed and still no movement is detected over the horizon, the men relax enough to be able to hunker down and eat their rations of potatoes in the cold. Jinyoung continues to look out, refusing the ration that Jaebeom offers to him.

They continue to keep watch. 

In the small hours of the morning, the sky begins to turn a fraction lighter. “The sun will rise soon,” Jaebeom murmurs, “we need only to hold on a little longer.” 

Jinyoung nods, allowing just a hint of relief to creep into his heart. 

But it is premature. For from the far distance comes a sound. 

Hooves, Jinyoung realises, just as a solitary horse emerges from behind a cluster of trees, galloping its way towards the strip. 

The men stir, hurriedly, into their positions. 

As the horse approaches, it becomes clear that it has no rider. And then it slows to a trot in order to pass between the twin piles of logs.

“It is the horse of one of the scouts,” says Yi En. 

“Let it through,” Lord Ahn Hyeon calls. 

The men wheel aside the many wagons loaded with stakes in order for the horse to come through. As it crosses the strip towards the barricade, the men begin to murmur.

The bloodied hand of its former rider still swings from its reins. 

“The blood is not yet dry,” says Jaebeom. 

“They will be here soon,” Jinyoung agrees. 

Lord Ahn Hyeon takes up his bow, and lights the tip of his arrow against a torch. He fires. It flies, straight and true, over the strip and into the pot of oil on top of the first log pile. 

There is a loud bang, and it bursts aflame.

He fires a second arrow, which does the same. Now the signal fires are lit. 

The watchmen atop the gates of Sangju fortress must see the flames, for the distant sound of drumming begins in the north, which will give the signal to the troop at Byeongseong stream. 

They wait, arms at the ready, as the flames from the log piles stain the night sky a murky grey. Jinyoung watches, and watches, until his eyes hurt from it, and even he then blinks them open to catch any sign of movement. 

And then, at last, the sound of birds. Morning breaks. 

The rising sun brings no warmth in the freezing weather, but dizzying relief. The troops rise from their positions, slightly dazed.

Jinyoung breathes, and feels the heavy dread in his stomach dissipate. 

“We must prepare for tonight,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, brushing the ice from his beard. “I will tell them to get some rest.” 

Jinyoung nods, and as he turns around he staggers from how stiff his legs have become from standing all night. Jaebeom catches his arm, and squeezes it after he has helped Jinyoung regain his balance. 

“Pack up quickly and prepare for evening!” Yi En calls.

Below, the men pour out from behind the doors of the barricade in order to take in the wagons. After the night’s silence, it seems as if they are unable to contain the eruption of noise as they call to one another joyfully, dousing the fires and pulling the boats to shore. 

“We have bought ourselves another day,” Jaebeom says, his face breaking into a smile. 

“Yes–” Jinyoung begins to say, but is interrupted by a sound. 

From behind the distant hills, hundreds of birds have begun to rise, noisily, into the morning sky. 

The men pause in their activity, startled by the sound. The birds swirl, gathering and dispersing, calling furiously as they go. 

And then they hear it: the sound of hundreds of running feet. 

The waters before them begin to tremble. 

Jinyoung seizes a bow, lights its arrow, and fires off into the distant mist. 

From behind the morning fog, the grass begins to shake. 

“It is impossible,” Jinyoung whispers. But yet the sound is unmistakable.

The horde is coming.

  
**Then**

There were whispers in the palace that the Queen Consort was most definitely carrying a boy. This was evident, apparently, from the way her morning sickness did not abate, and from the strong cravings she was having for particular foods.

The chief court lady who managed the Crown Prince's household volunteered reports of this to Jinyoung every other day. Out of concern, undoubtedly, but it grated on Jinyoung nonetheless.

“Next she will be telling me what quantity of spring onions the Queen Consort puts into her soup!” Jinyoung exclaimed, when he had finished telling Jaebeom of this. 

They had returned to the grove they always trained in, but Jinyoung had declared himself so aggravated and out of sorts that he no longer wished to practise his swordsmanship. 

“She has waited on you since you were a child,” said Jaebeom. “Of course she worries for you.”

Jinyoung bit back a cutting retort. Jaebeom was right, although it did not make Jinyoung feel any less annoyed.

“I did hear some news from one of the eunuchs,” said Jaebeom, who had, in the meantime, been cultivating certain individuals around the palace who were sympathetic to the Crown Prince. 

Amidst all of Jinyoung's preparations to shore up support, the opportunities for them to slip away to the grove had dwindled sharply. And now that they _had_ returned, Jinyoung found himself reluctant to speak of their recent plans. It was almost as if to do so would be to taint this place with all that intrigue.

“I tire of news,” said Jinyoung, flopping down onto the straw mat Jaebeom had earlier placed on the grass.

“You tire of news and you tire of training,” said Jaebeom dryly. “Whatever shall we do?”

Jinyoung seized a weed growing from the base of the tree stump and plucked it violently. “I know not,” he said. “I suppose we shall sit in silence until it is time to return.”

He knew very well that he was sulking, and that it was unfair of him to inflict this upon Jaebeom. But he had spent so much time holding himself together these past weeks that he could not help but wallow in his frustration now that he was in private.

“Perhaps,” said Jaebeom, “you would like to hear a story?”

Jinyoung stared at Jaebeom for a very long moment.

“Your mouth is hanging open,” Jaebeom said evenly. 

“I am…” Jinyoung began. “I am in disbelief.”

“Come now, it is not that shocking,” said Jaebeom, looking uncomfortable at Jinyoung's prolonged boggling. 

“_It is_,” said Jinyoung in wonderment. “It truly is.”

Jaebeom gave a sigh that sounded very much like he was now regretting his decision. “Do you want to hear it, or not?”

“_Yes_,” Jinyoung breathed, resting his chin on both hands. 

Jaebeom closed his eyes in what seemed like a silent prayer for help. “I do not remember where my story ended, the last time,” he finally said.

“The nameless boy had been challenged to a duel,” supplied Jinyoung, who had been intermittently wondering about this story ever since Jaebeom had told it to him months ago, “by the student of the greatest swordsman in the country.” 

“Yes, he had,” said Jaebeom. He settled onto a large tree stump and made himself comfortable. Then, haltingly, he began. “Naturally the boy was very scared, because his master had never let him properly test his skills against another fighter. But still he agreed, because he had heard it said that a true swordsman only improved his skill by finding better opponents. In truth, he did not know he could decline.”

“So they fought, and he won.”

“_What_?” cried Jinyoung, more out of shock than lack of comprehension. 

“They fought, and he won,” Jaebeom repeated.

“No, no, I heard that the first time,” said Jinyoung. “Good heavens. I have been waiting to know the end of this tale for months now, and you have just said it with no preamble!” 

“There was a preamble,” Jaebeom replied, with a puzzled look. “I talked about how he was scared. Besides, that is hardly the end of the story.” 

“There’s more?”

“There would be if you let me continue,” said Jaebeom pointedly. 

“My apologies,” Jinyoung told him. “Please go on.” 

“The boy had won, but he felt no different than he had before,” said Jaebeom. “And as the student he had defeated limped off back to the city, the boy looked around and realised that someone had been watching the fight.”

“Where exactly did this fight take place again?” 

Jaebeom gave Jinyoung an incredulous look. “In the forest where their masters had duelled just the day before, of course.”

“Of course,” repeated Jinyoung. “_Of course_ I should have gleaned that fact from a story entirely devoid of detail.” He paused, when Jaebeom frowned. “My apologies. Do go on.” 

“A man had been watching the fight. He was bruised and battered like he had taken a fall out of a tree, and he carried with him a magnificent tiger pelt. 

“‘Why did you fight?’ the man asked.

“‘I know not,’ the boy replied honestly. All he knew was that that was the way of things, that in order to make a name for himself he should fight, and win, until he did not. 

“‘Well, a warrior must fight for something,’ the man said. ‘A sword with no purpose is worse than no sword at all.’

“And the boy thought that there was some truth in the man’s words,” Jaebeom continued, “and so he followed him.” He glanced cautiously at Jinyoung. “That is the end of the story.” 

It was possible, Jinyoung reflected, that Jaebeom’s second attempt at the story was even worse than his first. But there was a more pressing thing he wished to know.

“Did the boy find it?” Jinyoung asked.

“What do you mean?” 

“I assume he followed the man to find his sword’s purpose,” said Jinyoung. “Did he find it?” 

Jaebeom did not even miss a beat. 

“Yes,” he said, looking steadily at Jinyoung. “He did.”

  
**Now**

They are overwhelmed.

It is not that their pits and stakes do not work. Rather, the creatures are too numerous. 

So while the first few are impaled upon the stakes of the wagons placed all across the strip, the stakes soon become full and the creatures simply surge around and over the wagons. While dozens fall into the pit and get impaled there, it is in such great numbers that the pit fills, and others are able to run, mindlessly, across the bridge of writhing bodies.

The archers and musketmen, who had managed to push out into the water in time for the onslaught, have fired and fired, felling hundreds.

And still the creatures come.

They are at the barricade, surging up against it as the troops rain arrows down onto them and stab them with long spears. The walls of the barricade, built with the sturdiest logs that could be found in that short time, creak and shudder under the force of their bodies. 

Together with the second row of archers, Jinyoung continues to shoot fire arrows into the horde approaching the strip. But for every creature that falls, two more run over it. 

“It is almost as if they have gathered from all ends of Gyeongsang Province,” he cries.

“They may well have,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon grimly. “Now that the weather has turned cold, it seems they are able to emerge in daylight.”

Before them, one of the men fails to dislodge his spear from a creature's body in time, and is jerked forward by it as it turns to run. He is saved from tumbling over the top of the barricade by Jaebeom, who catches him and pulls him backwards. 

Another one further down the barricade is not so fortunate, and falls, screaming, into the horde.

“Still more come,” Jaebeom calls. “They are climbing over the slain corpses of the other creatures to reach us. Soon even this barricade will be overrun.”

“Have the men brace the barricade,” Lord Ahn Hyeon tells Yi En.

“My lord, they have used everything to reinforce it,” Yi En replies. 

The barricade gives a violent shudder. 

“Even if the barricade falls,” says Jinyoung, “we cannot let them get past this point.”

“There is no other way to stop them if they break through, Your Royal Highness,” cries Yi En.

“Not if we use fire,” says Jinyoung.

“Surely not here at the barricade?” Jaebeom asks. 

Lord Ahn Hyeon looks at Jinyoung. “We still have oil.”

“The men must fall back and we shall set it on fire,” says Jinyoung. “And if they get past the blaze, they shall still have to get past us.”

They will likely die, Jinyoung knows.

“But we must hold out for as long as we can,” he says. “Send a messenger to Sangju fortress. Tell them they must be ready.”

Yi En hurries to give the commands, and have the men make preparations to position the jars of oil in place. Lord Ahn Hyeon moves down the line, calling for the men to remain strong.

“Your Royal Highness,” says Jaebeom, seizing a bow and arrow to fire off flaming arrows alongside Jinyoung. “If–”

“If you are intending to ask me to flee,” says Jinyoung, “save your breath.”

In spite of all the circumstances, Jaebeom still manages to laugh. “I wouldn't dream of asking,” he replies.

“I am glad you are by my side,” says Jinyoung, because looking death in the eye has made him brave. “I have been glad since the day we met.”

Jaebeom's fingers falter as he nocks his arrow.

“As have I,” he says quietly.

Jinyoung feels his heart leap wildly in his chest. 

“And if we should survive this,” Jinyoung continues, ignoring the way his pulse is now thudding in his ears, “I would hope that you would–” He pauses, and tries to steady his own hands as he draws another arrow. “What I mean to say is– I– Well–” 

He pauses, and steadies himself. 

“I would hope,” Jinyoung says, “that you would remain with me for the rest of my days.”

Jaebeom lowers his bow, and looks at Jinyoung. “Have I not already made you that promise?”

And then he smiles, and it is like a sun dawns in Jinyoung's heart. 

Jaebeom looks as if he is about to say more, but they are interrupted that moment by the jolt of the barricade beginning to give way under the force of all the creatures.

“Draw back!” Lord Ahn Hyeon bellows. “Draw back and ready the fire!”

The creatures are beginning to reach the top of the barricade even as the men scramble off it, hauling their torches and weapons and smashing the pots of oil atop it as they go. Jaebeom seizes Jinyoung's arm, unthinking, as they pull back two paces behind the barricade. 

Yi En and Lord Ahn Hyeon have their bows drawn at the ready, flames licking from the tips of their arrows. 

“We await your command,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon to Jinyoung.

“Have all the men fallen back?” calls Jinyoung, watching the barricade shudder and shift now that it is no longer counterbalanced by the weight of the troops. The creatures are slamming against the barricade, their shrieking growing more terrifying with each second.

“The men have fallen back, apart from those out on the boats,” says Yi En. 

“Hold steady,” says Jinyoung, waiting for the last possible moment before the barricade tips over, such that the largest possible number of creatures may be caught in the blast. “Hold–”

The barricade sways violently, splintering and creaking under the onslaught. 

And finally, it begins to tip.

“Fire!” Jinyoung calls, and the two flaming arrows sail across, igniting the oil-soaked wood upon impact. Flames roar across the barricade, consuming the creatures atop it and filling the air with smoke and the stench of burning corpses.

The rest of the troops form up into two lines which span across the width of the land, spearmen in the front and archers at the rear. 

“Get ready!” Lord Ahn Hyeon calls.

Through the smoke, they can see the creatures staggering back, writhing away from the flames and dropping into the water, where they will sink straight to the bottom. But already it is possible to tell that at some parts of the barricade, the fire had burned faster at the beginning and is now beginning to diminish in size. 

Jinyoung raises his bow, as does Jaebeom. 

And then, all of a sudden, a deafening series of explosions erupt on the other end of the strip, at the point where the land begins to widen. The explosions resolve into blue and orange flames that burn bright and high in a line that runs across the land from bank to bank. 

As the smoke clears, they see now that there are men out on the water. From what Jinyoung can tell, there are six rafts in total, with three men to a boat. While one man rows, another man lobs an explosive bundle towards the land, and ducks down for the third to fire at it with his musket, igniting the bundle just as it falls towards the creatures. 

“Who are they?” cries one of the soldiers, amidst hopeful murmuring from the troops.

Jinyoung glances over at Lord Ahn Hyeon, who is looking out at the boats, and realises that the expression on his face is one of grim recognition. 

The men work methodically along the banks without missing a single shot, until the entire column of land is alight with flames. The creatures that are not trapped along the column begin to turn and run, many of them still on fire, but the men on the rafts pursue them, rowing close to the bank and shooting creature after creature until all but a few have escaped into the hills. 

The rest of the creatures, now trapped on the strip and hemmed in by fire on both sides, screech and groan as they push back and forth in a frenzy. It is easy, now, for the troops on the rafts and the archers to pick them off. 

And then, at noon, as the sun rises highest in the sky, the remaining creatures shriek their distress and attempt to hide, pressing themselves into the pit and huddling in the shadow of the wagons, before going still and silent. 

The troops erupt into shouts of relief. Across the water, the mystery raftsmen pull away from the banks and begin to row towards them. 

Jinyoung looks over at Lord Ahn Hyeon. “You know those men.”

At the very same moment, Jaebeom, who is squinting out at the water with one hand shading his eyes, lets out a cry of recognition. 

“Yes,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. “They are the _chakho_.”

  
**Then**

His father said nothing of the Queen Consort’s pregnancy.

He seemed, in these past months, to have retreated even more into his mind, often lapsing into long silences during his audiences with the ministers. And always, Prime Minister Cho would be there to helpfully suggest the word he might be looking for, or to nudge him in the right direction. 

Jinyoung watched all this, and held his silence. 

“Lord Ahn Hyeon will return to the capital soon,” said his father one day, when he had summoned Jinyoung to his quarters to speak of the best essays from the imperial examinations. He said this slowly, as if he was making some larger point that Jinyoung would understand. 

“Indeed,” Jinyoung replied, even though he did not know what his father truly meant. “It has been many long years.”

“They told me I had sent him to his death, when I first ordered him out into the front lines,” his father continued, his face taking on that distant look he often got these days. He looked older than his years, all of a sudden, like a man who now regretted the loss of a friend. “But he endured, and brought us victory instead.”

“He is a great hero to the people,” Jinyoung agreed. 

“I did what was required of me, and so did he.” And here, for a second, Jinyoung’s father fixed him with an uncharacteristically sharp look. “Perhaps a time may come when you may have to do the same.”

But Lord Ahn Hyeon did not show any sign of wanting to return. No servants came to reopen his house, which had sat empty for seven years. The ministers whispered, and waited, and the Chief Scholar’s secret notes to Jinyoung grew more unsettled by the week. 

“We may need, at this rate, to act without him,” Jinyoung told Jaebeom.

“Then your position would truly be precarious,” said Jaebeom. “It seems, from your account, that even your father wishes him back in order for him to take action against the Haewon Cho clan.”

“What is more likely is that my father is losing his mind,” Jinyoung replied. 

It would be months later when he would realise that that audience with his father had been the last time he would see his father alive.

**Now**

The leader of the _chakho_ embraces Jaebeom like a lost son.

“How is it you have grown so tall, and so strong?” the man whom Jaebeom had called Junho says, pulling away to get a proper look at Jaebeom. 

“How is it you have not changed?” asks Jaebeom, who is smiling so hard his eyes have all but disappeared. 

Around them, the troops have begun the task of burning the rest of the bodies not yet destroyed by the _chakho_’s fire, in order to prepare for a next wave once the temperature dips in the late afternoon. Lord Ahn Hyeon and Yi En have gone down the strip to supervise. The rest of the _chakho_, in the meantime, have pulled their rafts onto the banks and are now packing more explosives into straw bundles attached to rope. 

Earlier, they had stood silently on their rafts when Lord Ahn Hyeon had thanked them. 

“We came to aid the people,” Junho had said, staring directly at Lord Ahn Hyeon as he did so. Neither of them had greeted the other.

To Jinyoung’s surprise, it had been Lord Ahn Hyeon who had looked away. 

And then that tense moment had passed, and they had dispersed to their various tasks, Junho and Jaebeom heading straight for each other. 

“– I thought we sent you _away_ from these blasted wetlands seven years ago,” Junho is now saying to Jaebeom, while another _chakho_ wanders over to grip Jaebeom’s arm and pull him into an embrace. 

“Your Royal Highness,” someone says, and Jinyoung turns to see Youngjae standing by one of the rafts. 

“Youngjae!” he cries, going over to him. “How pleased I am to see that you are alive!”

“I am very pleased, myself,” Youngjae agrees, with a wry grin. 

He would not be smiling so if the people at Jiyulheon were not still alive, Jinyoung thinks, with some hope. “But how is it that you are here?”

“The day Your Royal Highness rode out, my brother Youngshin found us. He returned with some of the others, bringing with them supplies from the deserted towns and materials to fortify the clinic walls.”

“The people in Jiyulheon are safe?” asks Jinyoung urgently. 

“Yes,” says Youngjae. “Youngshin is still there with them, together with another of our members.”

“I am overjoyed to hear that,” Jinyoung tells him. “But how did you know to come to our aid?” 

“After we had secured Jiyulheon, we travelled north by the Nakdong river in search of your party and realised, as we went, that the disease was spreading fast,” Youngjae replies. “We tried to help in places but there were too many, and then last night, we heard the drums upriver and realised that the infected were heading towards Sangju.”

“Truly, I thank you and your brothers,” Jinyoung says. “If not for your intervention, we would have surely perished.” 

“Are you quite finished?” one of the youngest-looking _chakho_ asks Youngjae, looking pointedly at the snarl of rope on the ground by their raft. 

Youngjae glares at him, but without much heat. “Don’t you know better than to be insubordinate in front of the Crown Prince?” he says.

“_Are_ you the Crown Prince?” asks the youth, peering at Jinyoung speculatively. 

“Please excuse Bam-bam,” Youngjae says, “even though there is no excuse for him.” 

The youth called Bam-bam laughs, and returns to stacking the rest of his explosive bundles together with great care.

“May I ask what is inside the explosives?” Jinyoung asks. 

“Saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal,” Bam-bam replies. “And pine resin, to help it burn longer.” 

“We raided a few fortress towns in order to obtain this,” says Youngjae, “but there is only a limited supply remaining on our boat.”

“It is ingenious,” says Jinyoung. “And you say you have been travelling by water?” 

Youngjae nods. “We managed to find an abandoned grain cargo boat on our way to Dongnae,” he tells Jinyoung. “There were a few infected boatmen on it at first–” 

“But we took care of that,” Bam-bam says cheerfully.

“Your Royal Highness,” says Jaebeom, approaching together with Junho. “I wish for you to meet my brother.” He is still beaming so hard that Jinyoung feels his heart soar. 

Seeing Junho’s arrival, Bam-bam and Youngjae bow and return to their tasks with a deference that they clearly had not bothered to show Jinyoung. 

Now that Junho is up close and standing beside Jaebeom, Jinyoung can see that he has the same look that Jaebeom used to have when he had first arrived at the palace. A hunter’s look, Jinyoung realises: the wary stillness of someone who is accustomed to lying in wait. But where Jaebeom had since learned the broad and stable posture of a palace guard, Junho seems to possess a ropy, coiled energy even when he is not moving. His gaze is hard and watchful, like a cat’s. 

“Well met, good sir,” Jinyoung says to Junho. “I have heard much about you.”

Junho smiles, and his weathered face softens into warmth. “But surely not about the time I forced him to learn how to climb a tree?”

“No, I am afraid not,” says Jinyoung, amused, as Jaebeom gives Junho an indignant look. 

“We were shocked when we found out that they had sent this ruffian to the palace,” says Junho, grabbing Jaebeom round the neck with an ease that stirs in Jinyoung a tinge of envy. “And then amazed when we heard he had not been thrown out.” 

“The shock he did cause at the palace would have rivalled yours, I would imagine,” Jinyoung replies, thinking back to Jaebeom’s early days. “The ministers all outraged, and the eunuchs perplexed. All the court ladies aflutter.” 

“Aflutter indeed!” Junho laughs. 

“Please would you not speak about me as if I am not here,” Jaebeom grits out.

“He has missed you all dearly,” says Jinyoung, eager for Junho to know that Jaebeom has not forgotten them. 

“I am sure he has not missed being made to keep a lookout for boars,” Junho replies, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Or having to sleep out in the cold.” 

“I would say he has suffered his fair share on my account,” Jinyoung says, thinking not only of this past week’s events, but of the arbitrary cruelties of palace life, and of the isolation; the politics and casual slights that go on among the servants. 

“Have I?” Jaebeom asks, looking up curiously. 

“But he has served you well, these years?” says Junho, more serious now. 

Jinyoung nods, and glances over at Jaebeom. Their eyes meet. 

“I would trust him with my life.”

Jaebeom flushes, and ducks his head. 

Junho looks from Jaebeom to Jinyoung. “From what Youngjae told me of your actions during your flight to Jiyulheon, it would seem our Jaebeom has found someone worthy to fight for.”

“Worthy, I do not know,” says Jinyoung, feeling suddenly flustered himself, while Junho laughs. 

“But Jaebeom tells me that as for yourselves, seven years ago,” Jinyoung continues, trying politely to shift the subject to Junho, “when you fought on these very wetlands–” 

He falters when he sees Junho’s expression darken. 

“Please accept my apologies if I have offended you.”

“It is not you who offend,” says Junho. He glances over at Lord Ahn Hyeon, who has very carefully chosen to remain out on the strip.

“But you fought alongside him, did you not?” Jaebeom ventures. “And he claimed a tremendous victory.” 

Notwithstanding that he is in the presence of royalty, Junho turns, and spits on the ground. “Victory? It was an abomination, what he did.” He pauses, catching himself, and shakes his head. 

Fear sinks in Jinyoung’s gut. 

“Please,” he says. “What is it that Lord Ahn Hyeon did?” 

Junho shakes his head and turns away. “No, I shall not speak of it.”

Jinyoung glances helplessly to Jaebeom, who looks equally troubled. 

“Brother,” Jaebeom says, hesitant. “Lord Ahn Hyeon is His Royal Highness’s last hope for ascending the throne and thereby preserving his life. If we are to be allied with the man, we must know if he is honourable.” 

Junho laughs bitterly. It is a terrible sound, and when he turns around to look at them, his face is filled with pain from a past horror. 

“You ask me if he is honourable,” he says. “Tell me, would an honourable man have used the resurrection plant on a colony of lepers in order to rout the Japanese? Would he, having turned them into pitiful, mindless monsters, have unleashed them onto his enemies?”

“No,” says Jinyoung, shrinking back in disbelief. “That cannot be true.”

Amidst all this, the movements of the other _chakho_ rapidly still. Some of them are rising to their feet now, looking on grimly, while the younger ones like Bam-bam and Youngjae remain crouched by their rafts as they watch the exchange unfold.

“And then, after they had served their purpose, would he have commanded us to then destroy them by fire?” Junho’s voice is but a fierce whisper now. There are tears in his eyes. “As if they were a forest to be razed for crops? As if they were tools to take up and cast aside?” 

Jinyoung feels his body turn cold. “Lord Ahn Hyeon would never–”

Junho scoffs. “How do you suppose he defeated an army of thirty thousand with only five hundred men?” 

_He did what was required of him_, Jinyoung’s father had said of Lord Ahn Hyeon. But surely he had not meant _this_. 

The act is too repugnant to even contemplate. It goes against every principle of morality in war. 

And yet all the evidence points to it. Lord Ahn Hyeon and his men had known exactly how to fight the creatures; in fact, they had not even hesitated. In the three years that followed his victory, no detailed records had been released as to the tactics his five hundred men had used. 

And now here is the testimony of the _chakho_ who had seen it with their own eyes; who had been given the awful task of slaughtering the monsters Lord Ahn Hyeon had made. 

“How many were they?” Jinyoung asks, unable to keep his voice from shaking. “Those from the colony?”

“They numbered more than a hundred,” Junho replies. “There were children among them.”

“You are trembling, and very pale,” says Jaebeom, stepping over towards Jinyoung. “Perhaps you would wish to–” 

Jinyoung is indeed trembling, but it is from rage. “I must speak with him,” he says, his voice taut with anger, with the deep and cavernous ache of betrayal. “I must know _why_.”

But even as Jinyoung says this, Lord Ahn Hyeon has already begun to walk back up the strip towards them, his mourning white stained grey with ash. The look on his face is that of a man who knows he is about to face his reckoning – that of dread and relief in equal measure. 

Jinyoung turns to face him as he approaches, and does not fail to notice the way Jaebeom’s hand goes to the hilt of his sword. 

Lord Ahn Hyeon comes to a stop across from Jinyoung, before the smoking remnants of the barricade.

“I see that you have heard,” he says. He sounds weary beyond his years.

“Will you not tell me that they lie?” Jinyoung asks. Already he can feel the tears burning in his eyes. 

“They do not,” replies Lord Ahn Hyeon. “They speak the truth.”

If it were anyone else, Jinyoung thinks, perhaps he could bear it. But to condemn Lord Ahn Hyeon is to break something in himself; the boyhood part of him who had still placed hope in heroes.

“Why did you do it?” 

Lord Ahn Hyeon shakes his head. “Would you believe me if I said it was for this country?” he says. “Would you believe me if I told you I had no other choice, that it was between going along with Cho Hak-ju’s plan or letting the lands be overrun by the Japanese?”

“I believe you,” says Jinyoung quietly. “But I hate that it is so.” 

“After that, I swore I would never again return to Hanyang,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. “There is no way, no measure by which I can atone for what I did.” 

“Those are pretty words,” Junho interrupts, “but he is only buying himself time.”

“I am not–” Lord Ahn Hyeon begins, but his words are soon drowned out by the sound of a contingent of royal guards galloping towards them from the north.

“Crown Prince Park Jinyoung!” the head guard calls. “As per the King's command, you are required in the capital to give a full account of your conspiracy to commit treason.”

The dozen guards behind him fan out on their horses until they have cut off any escape by land. Jaebeom draws his sword. The _chakho_ move for their weapons, but are forced to freeze when one of the guards fires an arrow that narrowly misses Bam-bam’s arm. 

“Touch those weapons, and my men will not miss a second time,” says the head guard. He turns to Lord Ahn Hyeon. “Thank you for guarding the criminal. But the Prime Minister was eager to secure his capture.” 

“He is here?” asks Lord Ahn Hyeon, gesturing towards Yi En and the rest of his men still on the strip.

“I have never known you to be one who would bow to Cho Hak-ju's will,” says Jinyoung. “Is it because he knows? Are you therefore afraid?” 

“My men will escort you,” Lord Ahn Hyeon says to the head guard, as Yi En and the others move down the strip towards them, bows in hand.

“What you have done cannot be undone, and you may well live with this guilt the rest of your days,” Jinyoung continues desperately, as Lord Ahn Hyeon's men arrange themselves on each side of Lord Ahn Hyeon, effectively hemming Jinyoung and Jaebeom in. “But it is for you to decide if you will continue down this same road, or turn from it.”

And now, finally, Lord Ahn Hyeon looks at Jinyoung. “My decision was already made.”

Before Jinyoung can say a word; before a next breath can even be taken, Yi En and the rest of the men draw their bows and shoot down the rest of the palace guards. 

“How dare you?” cries the head palace guard. “You would protect the traitor?”

“I ask,” Lord Ahn Hyeon says to him. “Who is the traitor? Is it not a palace guard, who should serve the nation and the King, but chooses instead to oppress the rightful heir to the throne?”

“Mark me,” says the head palace guard, “If Prime Minister Cho does not see the Crown Prince brought to him by dusk, he will raze Sangju to the ground.”

“Let him try,” says Yi En, and releases a second arrow straight into the head palace guard’s chest.

There is stunned silence as the head palace guard slides off his horse, and falls to the ground with a thud. 

“Your Royal Highness, I have done reprehensible things,” Lord Ahn Hyeon tells Jinyoung. “But I would never betray the throne. When I left, you were a prince. Now you are the King. I will serve you with my life.” 

Jinyoung opens his mouth, but finds himself quite unable to speak. He does not know what he feels – relief, perhaps, and shock, still. 

He is saved from speaking by the sound of hooves. They all turn and see, coming from the northwest, Hyoyeon riding furiously towards them on a horse, with Magistrate Kim clinging desperately behind her.

  
**Then**

The Queen Consort, heavy with child, took her time to descend the steps of her quarters at Tongmyeongjeon.

Jinyoung, who had been kneeling there at the bottom of the steps since dawn, looked straight ahead as she approached. The heavy silks of her robes rustled as she came to a halt. Jinyoung lowered his eyes in deference, such that he looked only at her feet. 

“Your Royal Highness,” said the Queen Consort, her tone in itself a rebuke. “You have been at my chambers for days, even though I am not fit to move.” 

“Father has been ill for ten days,” Jinyoung replied, “yet there is nothing I can do for him. It devastates me that I cannot fulfil my duties as his son.”

The Queen Consort shifted impatiently. 

“Please permit me to enter the King’s palace,” Jinyoung continued, “and to stay by my father’s side.”

“Your father is lying ill from smallpox,” replied the Queen Consort, “if you catch it from him and fall ill while looking after His Majesty, who will lead this nation? As a senior member of the royal family, I can never permit it. I bid you leave.” 

“Then just tell me this,” said Jinyoung, as the Queen Consort turned to go. “Is my father truly alive?”

“You may have learned how to be filial to your father,” said the Queen Consort, with the contempt of an elder even though she is younger than Jinyoung by two summers, “but not toward your mother. How dare you disobey me before the servants? Is it that you hate me so much? Or is that hatred directed towards your unborn sibling?”

“Your Majesty, how dare I–” Jinyoung began.

“If that is not the case, then you will go,” said the Queen. She turned to Jinyoung's attendants, who had been standing behind him as he knelt. “What are you waiting for? Escort the Crown Prince.”

The first drops of rain began to fall as the Queen Consort turned, and made her slow way back up the steps. Jinyoung waited until she was gone. He had been kneeling for so long that he did not know if he could stand without falling.

“Where is Jaebeom?” he asked, as his attendants helped him to rise. “Send for him.”

He walked back to his quarters in the rain, ignoring his attendants' protests that they could first fetch an umbrella.

Jaebeom was waiting for him at the door.

“You are soaked through–” Jaebeom began.

“I must see my father,” Jinyoung told him. “Something is very wrong.”

  
**Now**

When burnt, the stem of the resurrection plant emits a white smoke that contains the slightest hint of purple.

Hyoyeon lights only a small section, bundled with some straw and attached to a stick. With the rest of them huddled round, she holds the smoking bundle to the nose of one of the few infected bodies that the troops have not already disposed of. 

They watch as the spiral of smoke dissipates in the cold sunlight. 

Nothing happens. 

“Are you quite certain that it works?” asks Jaebeom. 

“Magistrate Kim and I would not be standing here had it not,” Hyoyeon replies. 

The story, by Magistrate Kim’s mangled account and Hyoyeon’s careful correction, is as follows: They had been gathering herbs just outside the fortress walls, when Magistrate Kim had recalled the Sangju magistrate’s office telling him to stay clear of someplace called Frozen Valley. 

Hyoyeon, of course, had insisted on going straight there the moment she had heard this. 

It had been as described in Physician Lee’s journal, Hyoyeon had told them: a place where it was foggy all year round, and the water remained as ice no matter the season. And there, they had found the resurrection flowers in bloom. This, then, had been the true Frozen Valley, and not the one in Dongnae where Jinyoung and Jaebeom had first found Hyoyeon digging frantically.

But Hyoyeon and Magistrate Kim had then been set upon by a small group of the infected while Hyoyeon had still been digging, and Magistrate Kim had thought to try to deter them with the torch he was carrying, only to drop the torch and set fire to the basket Hyoyeon had been using to set aside the stems.

“Why were there infected within the borders of Sangju?” Jinyoung had asked, at that point in the account.

“Perhaps I can explain,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had replied. “There were – when Physician Lee first attempted to use the resurrection flower, he tried it on a few subjects who had been recently dead. He left them in Frozen Valley, shut in one of the caves, but it over time perhaps the barriers had deteriorated.” 

“He _left them_?” Magistrate Kim had asked, voicing the horror they had all felt, while Junho had scoffed and shook his head in disgust.

“We will address this again,” Jinyoung had interjected, in order that Magistrate Kim and Hyoyeon might finish their account. 

There had been no escape from those caves, and the infected had all but surrounded them. But yet, as the infected had approached, they had begun to stumble, and soon they had crumpled to the ground and lain there, still and unmoving, as if they were truly dead.

“Perhaps,” Jinyoung says now, “the infected need to possess the ability to inhale the smoke. They do not seem to breathe when they become inanimate.” 

“If we wait for them to become animate it will be far too late,” says Junho. “And if these infected you encountered at Frozen Valley were those formerly revived by the resurrection flower, as Ahn Hyeon claims, then we do not know if the smoke will have the same effect on those who have been bitten.”

“I do not see what other choice we have,” Lord Ahn Hyeon interjects. 

Earlier, after the commotion of Hyoyeon and Magistrate Kim’s arrival and while the men had been looking for a suitable infected body on which to try Hyoyeon’s remedy, Jinyoung had spoken, in turn, to both Lord Ahn Hyeon and Junho. 

“Forgiveness is not something I can offer you,” he had told Lord Ahn Hyeon, “and I would not have you break your vow never to return to the capital. But I would ask that you continue in your task of securing Sangju.” 

“As Your Majesty wishes,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had replied. 

To Junho, Jinyoung had said, “Truly, I thank you for speaking the truth. I know even his presence is a source of grief for you, and I only ask that you would set it down long enough that we may defend Sangju.” 

“And what of the throne?” Junho had asked. “Surely you are still compelled to ally with him.” 

To Junho’s visible surprise, Jinyoung had shaken his head. “I shall find my own way.” 

He does not know what degree of persuasion he has, only that now both Lord Ahn Hyeon and Junho are at least willing to stand at the same table, even if they will not address each other directly. 

“If there is a way to test it first, far down across the strip,” says Jinyoung, “we would be able to see if it truly works. And if it does not, we return to our original strategy.” 

“You would gamble precious seconds on some smoke?” asks Junho. 

“Smoke which may turn the tide of this abominable plague,” Jinyoung replies.

“Your Majesty is right,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, ignoring Junho’s poisonous look. 

“If I may ask for your expertise on how we may ignite this from afar and ensure that it produces smoke in sufficient volumes,” Jinyoung says to Junho, in a deferential tone.

Junho looks mildly pacified. “I will speak with Bam-bam; he is best at such things.” 

“You have my thanks,” Jinyoung tells him. He turns to the others at the table. “The rest of us shall make preparations. Eat, if you can. I regret that there is little time to rest.” 

After he is sure everyone has returned to their various tasks, Jinyoung sags against the table, bracing one hand against its edge and another on its surface, as a wave of exhaustion rolls over him. 

“They will need the table for the new barricade,” Jaebeom tells him, after a moment, standing close enough that if Jinyoung wanted to, he could lean his shoulder against Jaebeom instead. 

“You do not still have the ration you offered me last night, do you?” Jinyoung says instead, because as much as he wants to, now is not the time for rest. 

Jaebeom retrieves a single ration of a potato from inside his robes, and hands it to Jinyoung, who splits it in half with his fingers and hands one half back. “You have not eaten either.” 

They eat in silence, while the barricade comes up and the men complete their excavation of a second pit in the strip. By the water, Bam-bam is supervising some troops and a reluctant Youngjae in combining straw and resin into bundles the size of oil pots. 

“Do you think it will work?” says Jaebeom. 

“I trust Hyoyeon’s word,” Jinyoung replies. 

“And if it does,” Jaebeom continues, “Junho tells me you no longer intend to enlist Lord Ahn Hyeon’s help to secure the throne.” 

Jinyoung shakes his head. “I would not have him return with us to the capital.” 

“Is that for his sake, or your own?”

“For both our sakes,” says Jinyoung. “He wishes to atone and I shall not stop him. As for myself, I am wary of what Prime Minister Cho might use against him, and, consequently, against me.” 

“Are you confident of the throne without him?” asks Jaebeom, frowning. 

“I am confident of nothing,” Jinyoung replies, and is surprised by how broken he sounds. He flushes, and turns his face away in shame. 

Jaebeom is silent for a moment. Then he reaches over and touches Jinyoung’s wrist over the soot-stained fabric of his sleeve. 

“There is a strength in you that never fails to amaze me,” he says quietly. “Let me be confident on your behalf, if you cannot find it in yourself this moment.” 

Jinyoung shuts his eyes, and lets his world narrow, for a second, to the press of Jaebeom's fingers, to the way his thumb rests in the hollow just above Jinyoung's palm. Jaebeom's breath, gentle and even beside him. 

“I would not have come this far without you,” says Jinyoung.

“Yes,” Jaebeom replies.

Jinyoung's eyes snap open. “Did you just _agree_?”

“Yes,” says Jaebeom. There is mirth in his eyes as he speaks, even as he does not let go of Jinyoung's wrist. “Verily, Your Royal Highness would have died many times these past days if not for me.”

Jinyoung plays along, saying, with feigned haughtiness, “If you expect to be congratulated for doing your job, you will be sorely disappointed.”

“I truly am,” Jaebeom replies, “bitterly so.” They both cannot keep the grins from their faces.

They are interrupted by Yi En hurrying towards them. Jaebeom withdraws his hand at the last second, tucking it back against the fold of his own robes. 

“Your Royal Highness,” Yi En says, “the weather is beginning to turn.” 

Jinyoung stands up straighter. The chill is indeed starting to creep in. 

“Yes,” he says. “Have the men take their positions.”

The barricade is now shorter than the first one, having been made with whatever logs the men have been able to fell in such a short time. Most of the _chakho_ have already pushed their rafts back out onto the water, weighing anchor by the banks further down from the strip.

As Youngjae and Bam-bam push out the last raft, Junho turns towards Jinyoung and bows deeply. “May Heaven smile upon us,” he says, in a wry sort of blessing. “May we survive this day and die at a ripe old age – fat, and full of meat and liquor.” 

Jinyoung smiles, and nods. “That too, is my wish.” 

Junho steps towards the bank and hops onto the raft, landing so neat and light that he barely disrupts the surface of the water.

“I would much prefer persimmons,” Bam-bam declares, and is elbowed by Youngjae for his impertinence. 

Some way back from the barricade, Hyoyeon has set up a station to tend any injuries, but she had also seen fit to request the use of a spear. She huddles there now, while Magistrate Kim, tasked with guarding the additional bundles of the resurrection plant stems, shivers beside her. Jinyoung gives them a brief nod as they glance over at him, before he and Jaebeom join Lord Ahn Hyeon and Yi En on the barricade. 

“So it begins again,” says Jinyoung, as they settle in their positions. “Let us hope that we can turn this tide.”

“I must thank you, Your Majesty,” Lord Ahn Hyeon tells Jinyoung. “For not overlooking my wrongs, and yet showing mercy that I do not deserve.”

“Thank you for saving my life,” Jinyoung replies simply, thinking not only of the events earlier, but also of Jaebeom in the grove, seven years ago. 

For that alone, Jinyoung thinks, he remains in Lord Ahn Hyeon’s debt.

But now, they wait. 

The men, who have not had any rest since the initial onslaught, now crouch in their places silent from weariness, watching every shadow in the fog. 

And then the silence is interrupted by the sound of a messenger galloping towards them from Sangju fortress.

“The Prime Minister!” cries the messenger from the magistrate's office, bringing his horse to such an abrupt stop that it rears up angrily. “The Prime Minister has sent soldiers into Sangju! They are infected!” 

“What do you mean?” asks Lord Ahn Hyeon. “Speak clearly, messenger!” 

The messenger steadies his horse and slides off it, as Jinyoung and Lord Ahn Hyeon descend from the barricade with Jaebeom following behind. 

“The Prime Minister was tired of waiting for the royal guards who had earlier come through to arrest the Crown Prince,” says the messenger breathlessly, “and demanded that we let in another squadron of soldiers. But the squadron had a chest with them, and after they came through the gates they opened it, and within it was one of the infected–”

“Good heavens!” Jinyoung cries. 

“It attacked the squadron first,” the messenger continues. “Then the squadron set upon our men. The disease is spreading through the fortress even as we speak. The Magistrate bid me ride here as fast as I could, to warn you.” 

“To sacrifice his own troops–” Jaebeom begins, aghast. 

“It seems he has only grown more ruthless,” Lord Ahn Hyeon says, looking suddenly old with regret. 

Prime Minister Cho had said he would raze Sangju to the ground, Jinyoung thinks. Now he will go about it in the most cruel way possible. 

He feels sick to his stomach. If this is what Prime Minister Cho would do for power, what hope does Jinyoung have of stopping him? Even if they somehow contain the disease, the Five Armies still guard the mountain passes leading to the capital. And even if he manages to journey to Hanyang, would anyone listen? 

“What are your orders?” Jaebeom asks, looking to Jinyoung. 

Even Jaebeom’s gaze alone is somehow steadying. Jinyoung pauses, and swallows back his fear. This is not the time for it.

“We must go to their aid at once,” he says. “Split the troops. Leave a third of them here with half of the _chakho_. The rest of us will ride for the fortress.” 

Of the four gates of Sangju fortress, the western gate has been barricaded due to structural damage, Jinyoung knows. The northern gate opens to the Mungyeong Saejae mountain pass, where a section of Prime Minister Cho’s armies are stationed. 

“Half will head for the southern gate,” he says, “and the other half for the eastern gate.”

“Take Yi En,” Lord Ahn Hyeon tells Jinyoung, “he is quicker with his bow and a faster rider. I can stay with the remaining troops.”

“Yi En will lead the approach to the eastern gate,” Jinyoung agrees. “Jaebeom and I will take the southern gate.” 

“I will relay this to the _chakho_,” says Jaebeom, while Lord Ahn Hyeon signals Yi En down from the barricade. 

The men move as if in a daze, dividing themselves into the three contingents and attaching wagons to the available horses. Of the _chakho_, Junho’s raft returns to shore together with two others, numbering nine men in total. 

Bambam and Youngjae are loading the explosives from their raft onto the back of one of the horses when Magistrate Kim runs towards them, holding the resurrection plant bundles under his long arms. 

“Won’t you be needing this?” Magistrate Kim asks. 

“Yes,” Jinyoung interjects, as he mounts the horse Jaebeom brings over to him. He looks over at Yi En. “We will try the smoke, first. If it fails, we will use fire.”

Yi En nods. “We will endeavour to get as many people to safety as possible before it comes to that.” 

As Yi En’s contingent sets off, together with Junho and four other _chakho_, Jinyoung looks curiously at Jaebeom, who is still standing on the grass. 

“Where is your horse?” he asks.

“I gave the last one to that wagon over there,” Jaebeom replies, pointing to a wagon onto which eight soldiers are currently climbing.

“Well, surely you cannot be meaning to _run_ there,” says Jinyoung.

“No,” Jaebeom agrees. “I assumed you would not mind if I did this.” 

He hooks a foot onto the stirrup of Jinyoung's horse and swings himself up behind Jinyoung. 

Amidst the flurry of activity around them, Jinyoung thinks, surely no one will notice the way he flushes. “I am the Crown Prince,” he says in halfhearted protest at the warm solidity of Jaebeom seated behind him.

“As I am well aware,” Jaebeom replies, expertly reaching round to take the reins. “Now, will the Crown Prince be telling the men that we are setting off, or shall I?” 

Once the last wagon is fully loaded, they head at a brisk pace towards Sangju fortress, the mood once again turning immediately grim. Far in the distance, they can already see the smoke rising.

On Jinyoung’s instructions, Bam-bam, Youngjae, and the two remaining _chakho_ have peeled ahead on their horses, in order to scout and also to place the resurrection plant bundles at the most advantageous position.

“Wind direction and suchlike,” Bam-bam had said. Jinyoung can only hope their efforts will not be in vain.

For the rest of them, their task is more straightforward. As they reach the southern gate of Sangju fortress, frightened people are already streaming from it, with the infected close behind. 

Bam-bam, having determined that the best location upwind is east of the gate where the ground starts to slope upwards, is now setting down the bundles of straw and resurrection plant in a neat row while Youngjae and the other two _chakho_ circle on their horses, firing at the infected in swift relay, each loading and tamping their musket while the other shoots. 

“Cut off the west side of the gate,” Jinyoung calls to the archers as they come to a halt twelve paces from the gate and the men spill from their wagons. “We will drive the infected towards the smoke.”

The archers’ lit arrows land in a line of flame running from the west side of the gate, causing the infected to shriek and stumble. 

“Get behind us!” Jaebeom calls to the people, leaning heavily to one side on the horse so that he can fire an arrow at an infected that is chasing down a little boy and his mother. “Get behind the line!” 

The crowd, now numbering close to a hundred, scramble past the opening in the line of troops behind Jinyoung and Jaebeom. 

There is a loud bang as Bam-bam ignites the bundles, and Jinyoung looks up to see him swinging back onto his horse, grabbing the musket he has had slung across his shoulders. The bundles burst into flames for a brief moment before banking to a glow just as Bam-bam had promised. 

The faintly purple smoke of the resurrection plant begins to billow down the hill. 

“Archers, hold!” Jinyoung calls.

There is a great heave at the door, and a second wave of the infected come streaming out, running straight for the line. 

“Hold!” Jinyoung calls, even though the first of the creatures are only a terrifying five paces from them and bearing down fast. 

One of the less experienced archers lets loose an arrow from nerves, hitting an infected in the shoulder. 

“Hold, I said!” Jinyoung shouts, but he knows they cannot hold much longer – 

The smoke reaches the infected.

There is no effect whatsoever. They continue to run.

And then, at the far end of the crowd, several of them begin to stumble. 

Jinyoung watches, heart in his throat, as more begin to stagger and slow, collapsing into the dirt and lying there as if they are truly dead. 

“Good heavens,” Jinyoung breathes. “It worked.”

“Wait,” says Jaebeom sharply. 

At the front of the row, the first of the bodies, that of a soldier wearing the colours of the Southern Fort Command, begins to move. Beside it, many others start to stir. 

A helmet-clad head lifts from the dirt to look up at them, eyes no longer fogged in death and hunger. 

“_Help_,” says the man. 

  
**Then**

While Jaebeom had gone to the Royal Infirmary under cover of darkness, Jinyoung had an errand of his own. 

Jaebeom would not approve of this, Jinyoung knew, but the circumstances were too pressing. At least that was what he told himself as he sprinted across the palace grounds in the moonlight, towards the King’s quarters. 

The corridors were deserted as he entered, although all the lamps had been lit. A heavy scent of incense permeated the air. Jinyoung crept along as silently as he could, mindful of every creak in the floorboards. He just needed to get to his father’s chambers; he just needed to _see_–

He heard the sound of feet from around the corner, and pressed himself against the wall. 

An eunuch, carrying a lamp, hurried past.

“His Majesty went missing?” said another voice that sounded suspiciously like Beom-il, Prime Minister Cho’s son and the head of the Royal Investigation Bureau.

“Forgive me,” said the eunuch. “I only stepped away for a moment–”

“If you wish to live,” said Beom-il, “you must find him. Now!” 

He had to make haste, Jinyoung thought, moving quickly towards the lit section of the corridor towards his father’s quarters, trying to pad as silently as he could in his socks. 

Then, the sound. 

A slow thud, and a shuffle. The rustling of robes.

Like someone was putting one foot heavily on the ground, and then the other. 

It was coming closer. Jinyoung had to hide. He made for the nearest set of sliding screens, and slipped into one of the private studies. Now all he could see from behind the paper screen was the flickering orange glow of the lamps outside. 

And they _were_ flickering, as if someone was moving past them. Jinyoung stood stock still, barely daring to breathe. The footsteps, if one could call them that, were coming closer. 

Then, from the edge of the screen, a silhouette. 

It was not human. 

It snarled like a beast, and shuffled as it did so. Its hands jutted from its arms like claws. And the smell – Jinyoung brought his sleeve to his nose as he caught a whiff of it, foul as death and filled with blood. 

The creature stopped before the screen doors and paused, as if scenting him. It began to snarl louder, its shadow growing larger as it shuffled towards the screen. Jinyoung, in his panic, seized an iron poker to defend himself.

The creature stopped, and paused right at the screen as if uncertain how it should proceed. 

And then there was a thud, and the lamps went out. 

Jinyoung breathed, and waited, and lowered the poker. After a long moment, he crept towards the doors. With trembling hands, he slid them open by just a handspan, and waited again for any further movement. 

There was none. He breathed a sigh of relief. 

But before he could open the doors any wider, they were shoved open for him. On the other side stood Beom-il, with two palace guards behind him.

“What are you doing here, Your Royal Highness?” Beom-il asked. 

“There was something – something monstrous in the hallway,” said Jinyoung, hardly believing it himself. “It sounded like a beast. It was not human. It was in the shape of a monster.” 

“That cannot be true,” said Beom-il far too calmly. “A monster, in the King’s palace? Your Royal Highness must be wrong.”

“You do not believe me?” asked Jinyoung.

“Your Royal Highness must be weak from having knelt in contrition for days,” Beom-il replied. “Please, return to your chambers and have a physician see to you.” He turned to the guards. “Escort the Crown Prince.”

As he said this, Jinyoung glanced down and caught sight of Beom-il’s feet. He and the guards were still wearing their boots.

“Did you find my father,” Jinyoung interrupted, his voice sharp now.

Beom-il paused, for slightly too long. “His Majesty is lying in his bed at this very moment.”

“He is lying in his bed?” repeated Jinyoung. “I shall simply check for myself, then.” 

Pushing past the guards, he strode down the corridors until he reached the doors to his father’s chambers.

“Open the door,” he said to the court ladies.

“No!” called Beom-il.

“Open the door!” shouted Jinyoung. “Open it at once!”

Beom-il drew his sword and held it by Jinyoung’s neck. 

If Jaebeom found out about this, Jinyoung thought idly, Jinyoung was going to be in a world of trouble. Second only to Beom-il, perhaps.

“You dare draw your sword at me?” he asked.

“It is the Queen’s orders,” replied Beom-il. “I am only maintaining the laws of the palace.”

“Can a mere commander of the Royal Army shed the blood of the royal family?” asked Jinyoung, his voice now icy. “If you can, strike me.”

And, when Beom-il did not move his sword, Jinyoung stepped away from the blade and made towards the doors, sliding them open. 

Prime Minister Cho was waiting behind them. 

Jinyoung peered past his shoulder; behind the beaded screen, the King’s bed was empty.

“Where is my father?” Jinyoung demanded.

“Are you concerned about your father’s safety?” asked Prime Minister Cho, his face impassive. 

“I saw a hideous monster inside the King’s palace,” said Jinyoung. 

“I find it interesting that you should say that,” Prime Minister Cho replied. “Because I have just seen one myself.” 

Jinyoung stared. “I beg your pardon?”

“A son, pretending to be concerned about his father,” said Prime Minister Cho, “when he secretly wishes for his father to die so that he can secure safety and power for himself. _That_ is the monster that I saw.” 

The shock of the accusation stole Jinyoung’s breath away from him.

“Not only that,” Prime Minister Cho continued, “but I saw monsters full of evil thoughts, who intend to use that son to slay His Majesty and take over this nation. Their blood fills the courtyard of the Royal Investigation Bureau.” 

“What are you saying–” Jinyoung began, even though he knew well what Prime Minister Cho means.

“Once that blood overflows, the leader of the conspiracy – the new king they wish to place on the throne – will be identified,” said Prime Minister Cho. “When the time comes, even a mere commander of the Royal Army may shed the blood of the royal family.” 

And now, having shocked Jinyoung into silence, Prime Minister Cho said, “Your Royal Highness may continue to wait, but His Majesty will not return. His illness subsided, so he went to the Queen’s palace. But I fear Your Royal Highness may have been startled.” He turned to Beom-il. “Escort His Royal Highness back to his quarters.”

“That will not be required,” said Jinyoung, as calmly as he could manage. “I will go myself.”

Jaebeom was waiting for Jinyoung when he returned. 

Rather, he was not so much waiting for Jinyoung as he was demanding to know how Jinyoung had managed to slip from his attendants’ sights. 

“It was not their fault,” Jinyoung interrupted. “I sent them on errands.”

“Like you sent me?” Jaebeom replied. His eyes were still wild with worry. 

“I wish to speak with you in private,” Jinyoung told him. 

They waited for Jinyoung’s servants to hurry away, visibly relieved, before proceeding into Jinyoung’s quarters. 

“I forbid you from making a fuss about this,” said Jinyoung, the moment the doors were shut behind them. 

“You _forbid_–”

“I was just at my father’s quarters.” 

“_Your Royal Highness_–” Jaebeom began.

Jinyoung held up his hand. “I _know_ it was dangerous. And I know you think I shouldn’t have,” he said. “Now, did you manage to retrieve the journal?”

Jaebeom nodded begrudgingly, and withdrew the journal from inside his robes. “It records the beginning of your father’s illness ten days ago,” he said, as he handed the journal over to Jinyoung. “But after the second day, there were no more entries.”

“How can this be?” Jinyoung said, flipping its pages rapidly. “Those in the Royal Infirmary must write an entry every day without fail. Furthermore, my father was in critical condition.” 

“Unless there was something they needed to hide,” Jaebeom supplied. “On the last entry regarding His Majesty, it states that a former physician of the Royal Infirmary was called into the palace.”

“A former physician?” asked Jinyoung.

“He resigned from his post three years ago,” said Jaebeom. 

Jinyoung turned to the last page of the records. “‘_Physician Lee Seung-hui of Jiyulheon in Dongnae was called into the palace_’,” he read aloud. 

When he glanced up, Jaebeom was giving him a look. 

“You know what I am thinking, do you not?” said Jinyoung. “I can see you that you disapprove already.”

“You cannot ride in secret to Dongnae,” said Jaebeom. “Who knows what the Queen will do–”

“The Queen did not forbid me from leaving the palace,” Jinyoung said, rising to his feet. 

“Your Royal Highness!” protested Jaebeom, leaping up as well.

Jinyoung turned to look at Jaebeom. “Something terrible is happening to my father right now in his own palace,” he said, keeping his voice calm but unable to stop the way his hands trembled around the journal he was still holding. “I will not stop until I find out what it is.” He glanced down at the journal, and back up to Jaebeom. “Would you please help me?” 

Jaebeom shut his eyes for a moment. Then he sighed, and opened them.

“I suppose we shall have to leave at once,” he said. “I will prepare what is necessary.”

  
**Now**

It would seem that for a person freshly turned, the effects of the disease can be fully reversed.

Not immediately, of course, from the way many of the people are still unable to fully move their limbs, and lie heavy and restless as a fever wracks their bodies.

On Jinyoung's instructions, the escapees from the fortress have been separated into two groups, the first being those who had never been bitten, and the other being those who are recovering from the disease. Hyoyeon has been sent for, to supervise the treatment of those who had been injured during their escape. 

“The eastern gate is secure,” says Jaebeom, who earlier had dismounted the horse they had been sharing in order to help with the triaging of the escapees. “Yi En's messenger just arrived.”

“Good,” says Jinyoung, with relief. “Have the messenger relay to him that we have entered the city.”

Earlier, Bam-bam, Youngjae and the other _chakho_ had volunteered to lead a group through the fortress city, bearing torches smoking with the resurrection plant stems. A steady stream of people that have been rescued has been trickling out ever since, some wheeled out on barrows and wagons if they cannot yet walk.

Word from the barricade at Unpo Wetlands and the pass at Byeongseong stream has come as well, all saying the same thing: the cure has worked.

Among the recovered, sixteen soldiers from the Southern Fort Command lie apart from the rest of the group. They attempt to rise as Jinyoung approaches, having been told, no doubt, that he is the Crown Prince.

“At ease,” Jinyoung tells them. “You are still recovering.”

Grateful, the soldiers sink back down onto the mats. 

“I only have a few questions for you, and thereafter I will let you rest,” says Jinyoung. “Tell me, did you know what was in the chest you brought through the gates?”

“We were not told, Your Royal Highness,” replies one of the soldiers. “We were simply ordered to carry it through and open it.”

“Indeed,” chimes in another soldier, “and a creature emerged, and set upon us while the rest of our contingent watched in horror from the top of the wall.”

Jinyoung nods grimly. “And who was it that gave this order?”

“The – the Prime Minister, Your Royal Highness!” cries the first soldier, while the rest of them nod.

“He is despicable beyond words,” says Jaebeom in disgust. 

“Thank you,” Jinyoung tells the soldiers. “I will not forget what he has done to you and to the people of Sangju. Rest easy, and recover.” 

“I am afraid this respite will not be for long,” says Jaebeom, as they turn to leave. “Once he realises that Sangju fortress has not been overcome by the disease, his natural next step will be to send in the army.” 

Jaebeom is right. Every action Prime Minister Cho has taken thus far seems intended to crush Jinyoung as comprehensively as possible. Perhaps the news of his son’s death in Jiyulheon had reached him, Jinyoung thinks, recalling how Jaebeom had been unable to find Beom-il’s decapitated head when they had returned the next morning to the shed where Jinyoung had fought for his life. 

They stand no chance against the Five Armies, that is for certain. Even if they somehow stage a successful resistance against the troops gathered along the road leading to Mungyeong Saejae from the northern gate of the Sangju city, there are still three more mountain passes from which the armies could enter. 

And there will be no miracles of five hundred men against thirty thousand in Sangju this time. 

No, there must be another way. 

“How desperate he is to see me dead,” Jinyoung murmurs. 

“We could travel south instead,” says Jaebeom, “avoid the mountain passes entirely and cross the peninsula to Gunsan on the southeastern coast. Grain cargo boats traverse the Yellow Sea routes that will lead up the Han River to the capital.” 

“I do not think that will be necessary,” replies Jinyoung, mulling through the beginnings of a plan.

“Do you mean to remain here in Sangju, trapped at every pass?” Jaebeom asks. 

“No,” says Jinyoung. 

“Then what _do_ you intend?” 

“I am considering,” says Jinyoung, “if I should give Prime Minister Cho what he wants.” 

Jaebeom gives him a startled, sharp look. “What do you mean?” 

“I will need Lord Ahn Hyeon for this,” Jinyoung tells Jaebeom. “Send for him.” 

As Jaebeom turns to go, Jinyoung catches his arm. 

“And I may need a favour of you.”

“Anything,” Jaebeom says readily.

“How sure is your blade?” Jinyoung asks, and watches the way Jaebeom balks, the way his eyes search Jinyoung’s face. 

“My hand has never slipped,” Jaebeom replies.

  
**Then**

Jinyoung’s coming of age ceremony had been cut short by sudden rain, for which Jinyoung was exceedingly thankful. There was no need for a ceremony. All he had done had been to properly turn fifteen, which would probably only increase the likelihood of him being assassinated, now that he was no longer considered a child.

“What would you do if assassins attacked me?” he asked Jaebeom idly, as he sat watching the rain trickle off the edge of the roof. Jinyoung was the only one in the palace who knew exactly how good Jaebeom was with the sword, and it felt pleasant to harbour that secret, to see Jaebeom shifting awkwardly in a corner and know that so much lithe grace was just waiting to unfold from his tentative limbs.

“Fight them, I suppose?” Jaebeom said, then added, hurriedly, “Your Royal Highness.”

Jinyoung waved a hand. “You may speak plainly when we are in private.”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness.” Earlier, Jaebeom had been given strict instructions not to be present at the ceremony because he could not even stand at parade rest without being distracted by some sound or other. 

Jinyoung liked that about him; how unused he was to court life. Certainly, Jinyoung liked Jaebeom better than any of the other guards. Especially Moo Hyul, who was very old and given to making soliloquies about the futility of battle, when all Jinyoung had wanted to know was whether he had really fought the best swordsman in all Joseon. 

“Do you think you would win?” asked Jinyoung. 

“Sorry?” said Jaebeom. 

“The assassins,” said Jinyoung patiently. “If you fought them, do you think that you would win?” 

“I suppose it would depend on how many of them there were,” Jaebeom said. “And if they were any good.”

Jinyoung shrugged. “I imagine they would be very good, if they had been sent to kill me.”

“Then I would try, I suppose,” said Jaebeom, rubbing his nose. 

“I suppose,” repeated Jinyoung darkly. And then, because he was feeling generous, he said, “You can ask me a question, if you like.” 

Jaebeom blinked at him. “Sorry?” 

“Surely you must have questions for me,” said Jinyoung, huddling up and drawing his knees to his chest the way he had been expressly told not to by his tutors as a child. 

Jaebeom considered this for a moment. And then he shook his head. 

“Have you _none_?” said Jinyoung, and then was surprised at how disappointed he felt. 

“I – well,” Jaebeom began.

“Yes?” 

“Will you truly become the King?” 

Jinyoung knew that of all people, Jaebeom would not have meant it as anything but a sincere question. It stung, nonetheless. 

“I know not,” said Jinyoung, honestly. 

Jaebeom frowned. “Would this not be something that has already been decided?” 

“It has been decided,” Jinyoung replied. “But there are many things...” Like what might happen after his father took a new Queen Consort at the year’s end, for example. But this was not something he wished to explain; not here, where he felt somehow safe and comfortable, a curtain of rain shielding them from the world outside his quarters. 

“Assassins,” he said instead. “The people who wish me dead might send assassins to kill me.”

“I suppose I shall fight them, then,” said Jaebeom. “And the people who sent them as well.”

Jinyoung laughed. “You can’t fight them all,” he said in a practical sort of voice, even though he was secretly delighted by Jaebeom’s sentiment. 

“I could try,” said Jaebeom, curling and uncurling his hands as if to gauge his prospects. “Or I could fight their leader, if they had one.” 

“Would you really do that for me?” asked Jinyoung, his voice coming out more serious than he had wanted it to. 

“I do not see why not,” Jaebeom replied, with that easy, elusive smile of his, the one which always made Jinyoung want to grin like a fool. “If you became King, you could grant me boons.” 

Now Jinyoung _was_ grinning like a fool. “And what boons would you have me grant?” he asked, trying to arrange his expression into something serious or, at the very least, respectable. 

“Rice,” said Jaebeom quickly. 

“A lifetime’s supply, then,” Jinyoung replied, and could not help but grin again at Jaebeom’s obvious pleasure from being granted his hypothetical boon. 

“And will that be all?” asked Jinyoung in his most regal tone, after Jaebeom had added nothing further.

“I shall have to think about it,” Jaebeom replied sincerely. 

“Think on it,” said Jinyoung, magnanimous, “for I will spare no expense in rewarding any man who has saved my life.” 

Later, when Jinyoung was in his bed, he thought about what Lord Ahn Hyeon had told him, the day he had discovered Jinyoung in the cave. 

_There is no one in the palace who can protect you_, Lord Ahn Hyeon had said. 

Perhaps there now was, thought Jinyoung as he drifted off to sleep.

  
**Now**

At dawn, Lord Ahn Hyeon approaches the great gate at Mungyeong Saejae, unarmed and still in his mourning white. He leads a horse that pulls behind it a wagon.

“Halt!” calls the guard on the wall. “By order of the Queen Regent, you are to come no further.” 

“Then I shall wait,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, stopping several paces before the gate. 

“No, my lord. You shall turn back,” calls the guard.

“I should be happy to,” replies Lord Ahn Hyeon, “if you would but help relay a message to an old friend on the other side.”

“We will not–”

“Tell Prime Minister Cho that Ahn Hyeon has what he is looking for,” Lord Ahn Hyeon calls.

There is a pause. Then the sound of the gate being unlocked. Its doors swing open, and Lord Ahn Hyeon proceeds towards it, stopping just after the threshold.

“Halt!” says the guard at the gate, peering at the wagon, on top of which lies a figure covered with a straw mat. “What is it that you carry?” 

“Go ahead,” Lord Ahn Hyeon tells him. “Inspect it.”

Two guards go around the wagon and lift the straw mat. 

“It is a dead man,” calls the guard to his commander. “Dressed in fine silks.” 

“And if you would require further proof of his identity,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, “perhaps this would be of aid.”

He hands the guard two fragments of an identity tag, its tassel bloodstained. 

The guard studies it, and almost drops the pieces in shock.

“What does it say?” calls the commander. 

“It bears–” the guard begins. “It bears the four-clawed dragon!” 

There is a rustling as the ranks part for the procession of a palanquin. Lord Ahn Hyeon waits as it approaches, hands folded behind his back. 

From within the palanquin, Prime Minister Cho emerges. 

“Could you not have had greater confidence in my abilities,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, “before you wrought destruction upon my city?” 

“I am sorry, old friend,” Prime Minister Cho replies. “I grew impatient with waiting. I am a grieving man. I have lost my son.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Lord Ahn Hyeon tells him. “Perhaps my news will be a balm to you.” 

“Tell me,” says Prime Minister Cho, “how did this transpire?”

Lord Ahn Hyeon gives him a dark look. “His Royal Highness found out,” he says simply. 

Prime Minister Cho nods knowingly. 

“The guards have already inspected the body,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon, “but perhaps you would like to look upon it yourself?”

“Indeed,” says Prime Minister Cho, with a smile that is positively chilling. “Nothing would please me more than to see that the man who murdered my only son is now dead.” 

“And in exchange...” Lord Ahn Hyeon begins. 

“We shall leave you in peace,” Prime Minister Cho agrees. 

He approaches the wagon, but not before ordering one of his personal guards to go ahead of him. Lord Ahn Hyeon watches with an air of grim satisfaction as the guard approaches the body, Prime Minister Cho standing one pace behind. 

“Lift the mat,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. 

The guard reaches across to lift it. 

But no sooner has he touched the mat than the figure beneath it twists and leaps to his feet, pulling the sword from the guard's scabbard and flipping into the air.

The man is on top of Prime Minister Cho before any of the guards can react, the blade of the sword pressed to Prime Minister Cho's neck. 

“One wrong move,” calls Jaebeom to all the guards, “and I will cut his throat.”

“Lower your weapons!” Lord Ahn Hyeon warns. “Anyone as much as touches their bow and the Prime Minister is dead. Then you will answer to the Queen Regent!”

Forced down onto his knees by Jaebeom, Prime Minister Cho begins to laugh. 

“You fools,” he says, wheezing, not caring about the line of blood now trickling from where the blade is pressed to his skin. “What can you possibly hope to achieve from this?”

Lord Ahn Hyeon ignores him, turning instead to the troops. “Which of you are from the Southern Fort Command?” 

The men shift nervously, unsure of what to do. 

“Answer him,” growls Prime Minister Cho. “Let’s see where this ridiculous farce will go.”

A company of six dozen soldiers raise their hands; nearly half of all who are gathered there. 

“You lost a squadron late yesterday,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. “I am sure you have not forgotten that.”

The men begin to murmur, some clearly still shaken by the memory of their fellow soldiers being sacrificed.

“These men were your brothers,” Lord Ahn Hyeon continues. “Reduced to monsters. All for the sake of killing a prince.”

It is evident, just from these few words, why many have considered Lord Ahn Hyeon to be one of the greatest generals of their time. He speaks firmly and authoritatively, with a sincere quality to his voice that is capable of moving thousands. 

“I tell you now,” says Lord Ahn Hyeon. “Your brothers are alive.” 

The doors of the gate swing open, revealing the squadron of sixteen. A few of them are able to stand on their own. Others lean on canes, or each other. 

The murmuring rises to a roar. A few of the soldiers in the company start to run forward, hardly able to believe their eyes. 

“Take one more step,” calls their commander, “and you will suffer the consequences.” 

Reluctantly, the men fall back into line. As they do so, a figure steps out from behind the squadron. 

He is clad in the navy robes of a guard, the sleeves a little too long and the fabric a little too ragged. But there is no mistaking his regal bearing as he regards the troops before him. 

“Countrymen,” says the Crown Prince. “I ask only that you let me speak.”

  
**Before**

“It is a terrible plan,” Junho had said, when Jinyoung had finished speaking, “begging Your Royal Highness’ pardon.”

“Yes,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had added, in a rare moment of agreement. “It is foolhardy, to say the least.”

“If we try to take them by force, there is not even a sliver of a chance that we will succeed,” Jinyoung had said.

Junho had thrown up his hands. “And so you have decided that you would _talk_ them into submission?”

“These soldiers are scared and afraid, just as we are,” Jinyoung had replied. “They saw their comrades sacrificed to the very disease they were sent to contain.”

“Soldiers fight for whoever is paying them,” Junho had said.

“Do you?” Jinyoung had asked in return. “Do we not all fight for something?”

“Perhaps you could persuade them,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had said. “But to even arrive at that stage would be incredibly dangerous. One false move, one guard who decides to inspect the body–”

“Who has seen the Crown Prince's face, apart from Cho Hak-ju himself?” Jaebeom had interjected. “I will have him by the neck before anyone can even blink.”

Junho had shaken his head. “They would sooner stuff you with arrows than let you continue with this plan.”

“Not if they feared for the Prime Minister’s life,” Jinyoung had countered. “Nobody wants to be the officer who gave the command that resulted in Cho Hak-ju’s death.” 

“That,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had said, “is not a perfect guarantee. But it is something to go on. I suspect that Cho Hak-ju values his life enough that he would not order the men to kill any of us at his own expense.” 

“Then it is settled,” Jinyoung had said, with greater certainty than he truly felt. “I fear there is no better option.” 

“No,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had agreed. “This may be our best and only chance.” 

Near dawn, in the room at the magistrate’s officer that had been loaned to him as temporary quarters, Jinyoung had changed out of the silk robes he had been provided with at Lord Ahn Hyeon’s residence, what felt like an age ago. Behind him, at the other end of the room, Jaebeom had already pulled off his guard’s clothing and stood there in his unlined inner robes. 

“Are you certain–” Jinyoung had begun to say, his back still turned to Jaebeom. 

“If you ask me one more time, Your Royal Highness,” Jaebeom had replied. “I shall truly be offended.”

“It is a dangerous thing I have asked of you,” Jinyoung had said, pulling off his last intermediate layer of wool and silk and laying it down on top of the table by his overcoat, jacket and pants. Already, in the span of a few hours, Jinyoung had regretted his plan several times over.

“I know,” Jaebeom had replied, and they had crossed the room, eyes averted, each to put on the other’s robes. 

Jaebeom’s guard’s robes, though woven from fine palace cotton, had now become rough in places from blood and dirt and ash. One of the sleeves of his overcoat had been slightly torn, although Jinyoung had been unable to guess at when exactly this had happened. He had put it on silently, layer by layer, while behind him the sounds of Jaebeom fumbling with Jinyoung’s robes had continued. 

When Jinyoung had finished, he had turned – before he had been able to stop himself – to see Jaebeom still trying to tie the coat strings of his _jeogori_. 

“Let me help you with that,” Jinyoung had said, striding over to him. 

Jaebeom had remained silent as Jinyoung had tied and knotted his coat strings, although Jinyoung had noticed the way his throat had bobbed as he swallowed hard. Then Jinyoung had picked up the overcoat in order to help Jaebeom put it on, at which Jaebeom had balked.

“I can manage, Your Royal Highness,” Jaebeom had said, trying to take the overcoat from Jinyoung’s hands.

“I know you can,” Jinyoung had replied, not letting go. “Hold out your arms.”

And for the first time in his life, Jinyoung had dressed another person. 

He had brought one sleeve over Jaebeom’s left arm, and then reached around to pull the other sleeve over Jaebeom's right one. He had smoothened the collar around the back of Jaebeom’s neck and across to the front of his chest the way servants had done so for Jinyoung thousands of time, before carefully knotting its coatstrings. 

When Jinyoung had glanced up, he had found Jaebeom with his eyes shut, breathing ever so slightly faster. 

And Jinyoung had not been able to help himself from gazing at those familiar features for a moment: Jaebeom’s fine nose and the soft planes of his face, that mouth of his that always spoke kindness and good sense. Jinyoung had felt something rise in his chest, then, something so hot and so fearsome that he had thought it might consume him where he stood.

Without even realising it, Jinyoung had brought his trembling hands to press against either side of Jaebeom’s face. Jaebeom’s eyes had fluttered open for a panicked second before he had squeezed them shut again, his lips parted slightly from the shock of Jinyoung’s touch. 

“I forbid you to die,” Jinyoung had whispered. “_Look at me._” 

Tentatively, Jaebeom had opened his eyes.

“I forbid you–” Jinyoung had begun again, but his voice now faltered under Jaebeom’s gaze. “I–”

He had paused then, not trusting himself to speak. 

“Come back,” Jinyoung had finally said; no longer commanding, although the imperative had been no less clear. And in a moment of bravery or madness, he had leaned in and kissed Jaebeom once on each cheek. 

“I shall do as you wish,” Jaebeom had replied, as Jinyoung had pulled back. “I shall not die.” 

“Good,” Jinyoung had replied, stepping away abruptly, his fingers still shaking, heart hammering in his chest. “That is – excellent to hear.” 

“There is one more thing, Your Royal Highness,” Jaebeom had said, just as Jinyoung had been turning to go – nay, to flee his own temporary madness. 

“Speak,” Jinyoung had told him, staring at the ground because he had then discovered himself incapable of looking Jaebeom in the face. 

“You once said you would grant me boons, for saving your life,” Jaebeom had said. 

And it had been such a distant memory, such a quiet, sweet time, that Jinyoung had laughed to remember it. “Indeed I did.” 

“I have thought about what I would ask for.”

“You know I would grant you anything.” 

“Then grant me this,” Jaebeom had said, and he had stepped over to Jinyoung, turned him around gently, and tilted up Jinyoung's face to press the softest kiss to his lips. 

For a long moment after Jaebeom had stepped away, Jinyoung had stared at Jaebeom in shock, unable to speak from how utterly undone he had now become. 

Jaebeom’s expression had turned from tender to uncertain, and then apologetic.

“Your Royal Highness–”

“I would grant this a thousand times,” Jinyoung had finally said, to Jaebeom’s visible relief. “A lifetime’s worth.”

  
**Now**

Jinyoung steps tentatively up onto the wagon. He is so filled with nerves that he feels almost faint from it, pressed down by the weight of every gaze on him.

Yet there is no time for hesitation. Not with Jaebeom still holding a sword to Prime Minister Cho’s throat. Not with the archers on the walls, bows still at the ready. For if they make good on their threat against Cho Hak-ju’s life, all of them will surely die. 

So instead he turns towards the assembly of soldiers and squares himself the way he has been taught to, as if the full weight of his royal robes still adorns him. He looks out at their faces – many of them young, too young, while others are old and weathered. 

And he speaks.

“I know what it is like to be hungry, and cold,” he says. “To go long enough without rations that your own stomach twists to feed on its own hunger. That the bark on trees starts to look palatable. That the very thought of meat makes your mouth water immediately.”

There are groans from the men at the mention of meat; some murmurs of agreement. 

“What would a prince know?” Prime Minister Cho snarls. 

Lord Ahn Hyeon tears a strip of cloth from his sleeve, and gags him.

“I know what it is like to stand at the gates, begging to be let in, begging for my life,” Jinyoung continues. “With hordes in pursuit and my fellow men and women pressed around me, all of us entirely at the mercy of those who would guard them. 

“This happened to me in Dongnae. We were turned away and left to die.” 

More murmuring now, some of it in shock.

“Is that not how it has always been, in life?” Jinyoung’s voice comes clearer now, stronger. “That we beg, and weep, and struggle to live. And those who would presume themselves above us look down from the walls, and they say: ‘No. It is better for _us_ to survive.’” 

Some of the murmuring turns to scattered calls of agreement. The soldiers are now looking at Jinyoung not with the indifferent curiosity from before, but intently, waiting to hear his next words. 

“There is a disease in this land,” says Jinyoung. “You and I know it well. It is not the disease that swept Sangju last night – the one Cho Hak-ju cruelly inflicted on your comrades and released upon innocent lives – no. 

“It is a disease that stems from greed, the greed of Cho Hak-ju and the ones that seek to support him. Greed for money, greed for power. They are _ravenous_. And that monstrous hunger has been devouring this country, raising your taxes, stripping your barley from its stems before you have been able even to harvest it.” 

The men are nodding, some of them furiously. Their commanders shift, nervous at the energy that is building. 

As Jinyoung speaks, the troops from Sangju and many of the other escapees begin to gather silently at the gates, filling the courtyard. Those who cannot yet walk have been pulled on carts. Junho and the _chakho_ circle on their horses, muskets slung across their shoulders.

“Last night’s disease flows from that greater evil. Cho Hak-ju’s greed is so great that he is willing to sacrifice soldiers such as yourselves in order to destroy a city of innocent people. And for what? More power.” Jinyoung pauses, and looks around at the men. 

“The Emperor is dead,” he says. 

There is an explosion of noise as the men erupt into confusion. 

Jinyoung waits for them to quiet down. “The Emperor is dead,” he repeats. “What I am telling you is not a lie. He has been dead since the second day of this month. And in his lust for power, Prime Minister Cho has committed an abomination, by infecting the Emperor with a disease that makes the dead walk.”

A wave of shock goes through the assembly, but they are quiet now, hanging on to Jinyoung’s every word. 

“By the laws of this land I am the rightful heir to the throne, although the Haewon Cho clan have done everything in their power to stop this, including sending you here,” he says. “I know that who sits on the throne may not have immediate importance to your lives. But someone must stand in the way of this disease.” 

“Someone,” he continues, “must be able to turn to those on top of those walls and say: ‘Open the gates’. Someone must go to those who would snatch the last grains from your storehouses and say: ‘Return what you have stolen’.”

He looks out at the men. “I am only a man. My mandate comes only by the luck of my birth, and my position here – standing before you – only by the grace of those who have seen fit to support me. But two days ago I stood at the southern gate of Sangju fortress, and ordered the magistrate to open its doors to those fleeing from the disease in the south of Gyeongsang.

“And I intend, now, to march to the palace in Hanyang, and I will say to the Queen Regent and all those who have sucked this country dry: _return what you have stolen_.” 

A cheer erupts from the men. 

“I do not ask you to fight for me,” Jinyoung continues, holding out his hands. “Only that you let me pass. But if you choose to join me, know that it is not for me that you fight. You fight for your country. For every man, woman, and child in the villages and towns and cities you have been forced to leave. 

“And if you do decide to join me,” Jinyoung concludes, “know that I am not a brave man. I am no great warrior. But I will not abandon you.”

He gazes out fiercely at the troops, watching respect and confidence that he does not deserve bloom in their faces. 

One of the commanders, clearly still loyal to the Haewon Cho clan, shouts, “This man is a traitor who would usurp the throne! Kill him!” 

He seizes a bow and arrow and moves to aim it at Jinyoung, but the deputy beside him knocks him over onto the ground and pins him. Other men pile onto the commander, stripping the bow from his hands and sword from his scabbard.

“I know not about whether you are the rightful heir to the throne,” says the deputy, rising to his feet. He points towards one of the men in the recovered squadron of sixteen. “But you saved the life of my best friend. I thought I had watched him die. That is enough for me to follow you.” 

“He saved my life, too!” calls Magistrate Kim from the crowd behind Jinyoung. “Even though I was a coward.” 

“And mine,” calls Youngjae. “In Dongnae, he refused to abandon a wagon of the infirm even as the infected were bearing down upon us.” 

Shouts of, “and mine!” start to ring out from among the Sangju crowd.

The men begin to murmur again, peering curiously at the assembly behind Jinyoung. 

“If what he says is correct,” shouts one of the soldiers. “Is he not the King?” 

“Yes, indeed he is,” calls Lord Ahn Hyeon. “Now, will you fight for His Majesty?” 

The answering roar of the soldiers is so loud that Jinyoung nearly loses his balance and tumbles off the wagon. He catches himself in time. 

Lord Ahn Hyeon turns to Jinyoung, and smiles. “It seems Your Majesty has acquired an army.”

  
**Now**

It is different now, riding back to the capital, compared to their initial flight from it. During their journey south to Dongnae, Jinyoung and Jaebeom had ridden swift as they wanted, and made camp when and where they wanted. Now, there are the logistics of hundreds of men to consider, and progress is slow.

Yi En has come with them, as Lord Ahn Hyeon’s proxy, but Junho and the rest of the _chakho_ have declined to accompany Jinyoung, choosing instead to travel south to Dongnae so as to reunite with Youngjae’s brother and Jaek-seun, the other _chakho_ still guarding Jiyulheon. 

“I bid Your Majesty the smoothest of journeys,” Junho had told Jinyoung before the _chakho_ had set off, when they had parted ways at the southern gate of the fortress. And then, he had added one of the idiosyncratic blessings Jaebeom said he liked to compose while waiting up in a tree. “May Your Majesty’s path always be straight, and free of snakes.”

“We shall certainly meet again,” Jinyoung had replied, “for you still have not told me the story of Jaebeom’s early endeavours at tree-climbing.” 

Junho had laughed. “I suppose I haven’t. It is a truly entertaining tale.” 

“I shall look forward to it,” Jinyoung had said, while Jaebeom fidgeted uncomfortably next to them. 

Jinyoung had left Jaebeom to say a proper goodbye to Junho, and had wandered over to where Bam-bam and Youngjae had been crouched in the grass, idly comparing the size of their battle scratches. 

Bam-bam had stared up at Jinyoung for a moment, only rising to his feet when Youngjae had hauled him up. 

“You weren’t the Crown Prince after all,” he had said to Jinyoung, with no preamble or greeting. “Now I discover I have been impertinent to the King!” 

“I suspect,” Youngjae had said, voice dry, “that is not in fact something to be proud of.”

“I pardon you,” Jinyoung had said graciously to Bam-bam, “if only on Youngjae's account.”

“If I may, Your Majesty,” Youngjae had interjected, “Bam-bam is a knave and should receive no pardon.”

“A _handsome_ knave, though,” Bam-bam had added, winking as Jinyoung had laughed.

They had stood at the gates and watched as Junho and the _chakho_ had ridden off towards the south, where they would hopefully return to the boat they had commandeered during the spread of the infection and travel down to Dongnae by river. 

Jinyoung had opened his mouth to speak, but Jaebeom had cut him off before he could finish drawing breath.

“If you are about to ask me whether I wish I were riding with them,” Jaebeom had remarked, “think again.”

“I was about to say nothing of that sort,” Jinyoung had replied: a bald-faced lie. 

Jaebeom had laughed, and, after glancing quickly around, reached over to touch his hand lightly to the side of Jinyoung’s neck, his index finger barely brushing skin.

Jinyoung had gulped, hard, and kept his eyes open. 

“You know well where my place is,” Jaebeom had said. And then, having sufficiently flustered Jinyoung, he had turned and walked back through the fortress gates, leaving Jinyoung to trail behind him feeling outraged and apologetic in turn. 

When it came time for Jinyoung to set off, Lord Ahn Hyeon had presented him with a letter which bore his seal. 

“This is my true and detailed account of what happened in the battle of Unpo Wetlands, three years past,” he had said. “Clear evidence of Cho Hak-ju’s deeds.” 

“You would indict yourself?” Jinyoung had asked. “You will be ruined.”

Lord Ahn Hyeon had nodded. “For the throne, and for Your Majesty, this is the very least I could do.” 

“I am heavily in your debt as it is,” Jinyoung had told him, accepting the letter. 

“No,” Lord Ahn Hyeon had replied, looking fragile and weary and no longer quite the man who had towered in Jinyoung's memory, “it is I who can never repay Your Majesty.” 

“It takes strength to keep walking this path of atonement,” Jinyoung had told him, for even if Lord Ahn Hyeon could no longer be the hero of Jinyoung’s boyhood, Jinyoung had now seen not only his broken feet but also the core of principle he still possessed. “It is not my place to absolve you, but I hope that heaven will smile upon you.” 

Lord Ahn Hyeon had nodded. “When Your Majesty ascends the throne,” he had said, “I trust Your Majesty will remember the promises you made at the gate.”

“I shall,” Jinyoung had replied. “And besides, Jaebeom would hardly let me forget.” 

And here, Lord Ahn Hyeon had finally smiled. “It pleases me to think that I had made at least one good decision in the midst of that accursed war." 

Jinyoung had reached over to grip Lord Ahn Hyeon’s hands. “It has made all the difference,” he had said. “Let that be one more thing that counterbalances against your transgression.”

Then Lord Ahn Hyeon had gone to speak with Yi En, who, as it turned out, had never left Gyeongsang Province in his life. And among the crowd milling about packing supplies and loading carts, there had stood Hyoyeon, with Magistrate Kim still bobbing at her elbow. 

“But for you,” Jinyoung had said, going over to her, “all would have been lost.” 

“Nay, it is but for Your Majesty believing my testimony,” Hyoyeon had replied, bowing deeply. From the folds of her apron she had retrieved a pouch, inside which had been a cutting of a resurrection plant stem. 

“For Your Majesty’s father,” she had said. “It will not bring him back to life but it will bring him some peace, at the very least.”

“Truly, I thank you,” Jinyoung had told her. And, glancing over at Magistrate Kim, he had added, “I see you have persisted in placing yourself at Hyoyeon’s disposal, Kim Yugyeom.” 

“She saved my life, that first night in Dongnae,” Magistrate Kim had replied. “And for that I shall remain by her side as long as she shall have me.” 

“Is that so?” Jinyoung had asked, amused, while Hyoyeon had looked heavenward in exasperation. 

“Until my hair turns white,” Magistrate Kim had said earnestly. 

“Well, I wish you the best of luck,” Jinyoung had replied, more to Hyoyeon than to Magistrate Kim.

And then they had finally set off, accompanied not only by the troops that had been stationed at the Mungyeong Saejae gate, but also joined by another contingent from Jungnyeong pass, which had caught wind of the news and of Prime Minister Cho’s despicable actions. A third contingent from Gyeripnyeong pass would converge with them at dawn the next day, according to the messenger they had sent. Riders had also gone ahead to the capital in secret, to inform the Chief Scholar of their impending arrival in order that he might make preparations together with those who support the Crown Prince. 

Perhaps it will be enough; Jinyoung has no way of knowing for certain. But all he can do is to try with all his strength – to struggle and fight and to hope, despite the circumstances. He owes it to the people, and to himself. 

He glances over, now, to Jaebeom riding beside him. He has been lost in thought ever since they left Sangju. 

“Did you and Junho manage to bid each other a proper farewell?” asks Jinyoung. 

“Yes,” Jaebeom replies. “And it was a better one than our last.” 

Jinyoung glances quizzically at Jaebeom. “How so?” 

“He worried for me, the last time. When he worries he gets gruff, and we exchanged harsh words, when we last parted.”

“We are riding to the capital to dethrone the Queen Regent,” says Jinyoung. “Surely there is greater cause for worry now.” 

“Perhaps,” Jaebeom replies. “But he seemed far more at ease.” 

Jinyoung nods. “I am glad of that,” he says. “But if it is not bidding farewell to Junho that troubles you, then what is it?” 

“I am not troubled,” Jaebeom says reflexively. 

Jinyoung laughs. “I can see from the way you worry your lip that you are.” 

“Am I so transparent to you?” Jaebeom asks, with a rueful smile. 

“On occasion,” Jinyoung replies. “But not always.” He smiles. “If time ever permits, I should like to flip you open and read you slowly, like a book.” 

Jinyoung had meant nothing untoward by his comment, but he realises how it must have come across when Jaebeom flushes and ducks his head. 

Jinyoung frowns. “I have said too much.” 

“No,” says Jaebeom, sounding a little strained. “Not at all, Your Majesty.” 

“Well then,” says Jinyoung. “What is it? The thing that troubles you.” 

“It is a trivial thing,” Jaebeom says. “I was merely thinking about how things have already begun to change. How your time will not be your own. Already you are becoming a symbol to the men. A – a vessel, for their hopes.” He pauses. “I suppose I am steeling myself for how Your Majesty now … belongs to everyone, in some way.”

“It is not trivial,” Jinyoung replies seriously. “And you are not wrong.”

They ride along wordlessly for a spell, Jaebeom sinking back into his thoughts while Jinyoung ponders his words. He thinks about how it must be for Jaebeom, to have had Jinyoung all to himself for so long – more so, during their recent journey – and to realise that Jinyoung will now be held in the hearts of many; that Jinyoung’s very survival and success depends on it.

It is a reasonable conclusion to reach, Jinyoung supposes, but wholly inaccurate. For who but Jaebeom would know of the Jinyoung in the grove? Of the cave and its stone piles; of all the secret hopes and idle things they have spoken to one another night after night, day after day? 

“Not all of me,” says Jinyoung, finally breaking the silence. 

Jaebeom glances at him. “I beg your pardon?” 

“Not all of me will belong to everyone,” says Jinyoung. He looks over at Jaebeom, and no longer tries to keep from his face the weight and warmth of everything he has felt for seven years. 

“Not the parts that matter the most.”

  
**Epilogue**

At an inn in Hapcheon, a storyteller was settling himself down to give the night’s entertainment.

“What story shall I tell today?” he asked the crowd that had assembled. “The one of the old man and the goblin?” 

There was a smattering of applause from around the room. 

“We’ve heard that one before!” someone shouted.

“Or how about the tale of Dangun the bear?” 

“Are we children?” roared another guest. “Enough with the fairy tales!”

The storyteller laughed. “Perhaps, then, the one about how Lee Bang-Ji became the greatest swordsman in Samhan?” 

“That’s more like it!” the first man cried, while others still shook their heads.

“Or perhaps,” said the storyteller, knowing full well what the people truly wanted, “a Gyeongsang Province favourite: the one about the prince who saved his people.” 

There was a hum of approval and nods all around the room. 

“Go on then,” shouted a man in the front row, who was in fact a resident of Hapcheon who had heard this story countless times. “Tell us about the prince and his guard!” 

“Quiet down,” said the storyteller, flapping his hands at the man. “I am informed we have actual guests from outside of Hapcheon today. Perhaps we should let them choose.”

He gestured towards a table in the far corner, where the two strangers were seated. They were wearing the robes of travelling scholars, and at least one of them had, thus far, been looking on in interest at the evening's proceedings. 

“Good sirs,” said the storyteller, “what tale might you wish to hear this night?”

“Tell me. This tale of the prince,” said one of the scholars, who was slighter than the other and possessed a fair face and noble bearing. He had a low, clear voice that was pleasing to the ear and seemed like it would be well suited for telling stories such as these. “Does it end well?”

“Who picks a story by asking about its ending!” roared one of the other guests.

“No,” said the storyteller. “That is indeed a fair question.”

“The prince and his guard. They live, then?” asked the scholar. Beside him, his companion pressed one hand to his forehead, almost as if in embarrassment. 

“The prince becomes the king!” shouted an old man in a dusty corner, rousing himself just sufficiently to bellow this fact. “He remains the king to this day!” he added, before sinking back onto his bench. 

“And what of his guard?” the scholar continued, while his companion seemed to shrink visibly in his seat. “Tell me about his guard. Was this man very brave and skillful?”

“As brave as a tiger, good sir,” the storyteller replied. “And so skilled you could scarcely see his blade when he fought.”

The scholar smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling under the brim of his _gat_. “That is indeed impressive.” 

“So what will it be?” cried another guest impatiently. “Do you want the story, or not?” 

“Yes!” shouted someone else. “Make your choice, for we pay this swindler by the hour!” 

“The tale of Lee Bang-ji, if you please,” said the scholar to the storyteller, amidst groans of disappointment from the room. 

“Are you certain?” asked the storyteller. “You seemed awfully interested in the one about the prince.” 

“Oh, it is a fine story no doubt,” said the scholar, settling back in his seat and glancing at his companion with the quickest and fondest of smiles. “But we both know quite well how it goes.”

**Author's Note:**

> The other alternate summary of this story is ‘the one where I truly did not need to go SO HARD’. Except that I did, and this was massive. I blame my sublimated feels about _Kingdom_ as well as JJP’s faces. 
> 
> I _credit_, on the other hand, the amazing [forochel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/), who has been writing Such Good Fic for JJP that I had no choice but to get sucked in. (SERIOUSLY, read their fic! They made me like JJP even while I was still figuring out which one was ‘J’ and which one was ‘JP’. This story is basically fic of their fic.) To forochel: this started out as a gift for you (and… still remains a gift obv) but the ~real gift~ was the fun we had along the way!!!!! Thank you for your staggering amounts of encouragement and your absolutely lovely comments, I am stupidly stoked that you like this. 
> 
> And finally, if there are any sageuk/fusion sageuk fans out there, this was not only based on _Kingdom_ but also heavily inspired by _Six Flying Dragons_. Come yell at me about it (e.g. WHAT ON EARTH WILL HAPPEN IN KINGDOM SEASON 2??????); I may not be coherent but I will be enthusiastic.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The (Mis)Education of Lim Jaebeom, Royal Guard to the Person of His Imperial Majesty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21037196) by [forochel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel)


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